Evaluation technique of various disturbing factors in residential kitchen spaces affecting exhaust hood efficiency

In this paper, we examined the effects of disturbance from cooking actions and outdoor air flow from air inlets on the hood efficiency of kitchen range hoods. Moreover, we developed an unsteady method capable of measuring hood efficiency under actual usage conditions in which disturbance is present, and performed measurements of hood efficiency under various conditions. Our results show that when range hood exhaust volumes are small, the effect of disturbance is large. We demonstrated that, because evaluations of kitchen range hoods using residual volume are affected by the dimensions of the room, use of the unsteady method in measurements is desirable under conditions in which disturbance is present. Hood efficiency was lowered by around 5 to 20% when disturbance was present.