Numerical investigation on kitchen environment in cooking under three types of natural make-up airflow with a Chinese-style residential kitchen

Abstract

Kitchen indoor environment is not always satisfied due to unfavourable thermal condition and poor air quality in domestic cooking especially for Chinese-style residential kitchen (CRK). Traditional CRKs are only equipped with a range hood with natural make-up air from window openings or cracks. Thus, this paper made numerical simulation to study kitchen indoor environment under three natural air make-ups. Three kinds of natural make-up conditions were selected in this simulation. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method was conducted. Results show that there was a uniform temperature distribution in working zone of occupant under window open condition but was up to 34.4°C. In breathing zone, air temperature exceeded the accepted thermal comfort. Velocity magnitude was up to 0.9 m/s among three conditions, and was the highest in the vicinity of the stove under window open condition. Under insufficient air make-up, maximum velocity was observed in the central line of the kitchen. Through sufficient controlled well-organized air make-up in kitchen, particle mean and maximum concentration could be reduced by 77% and 68%, respectively.