Investigation on the indoor environment during a whole cooking process under constant make-up air organization in a Chinese-style residential kitchen

A large amount of heat and particles generated from cooking have a negative impact on occupants’ thermal comfort as well as the indoor environment in the kitchen and adjacent rooms. Although heat generation rate and emission strength of particles are largely affected by oil temperature and cooking duration, there is a lack of quantification on the impact of the indoor environment during the whole cooking process. This study applies a computational fluid dynamics method to simulate air temperature, velocity and particle distribution in a kitchen and indoor environment during a 10-min and after 2-min cooking process with constant make-up air organization from window opening in a Chinese-style residential kitchen. User-defined function was defined for dynamic oil temperature and emission rate based on experimental results from previous studies and was interpreted in FLUENT for transient simulation within 12 min. Results indicate that heat spread remarkably after 30 s of oil heating. Air temperature experienced an increase of about 10.0°C around the occupant during the whole cooking process. For particle distribution, a large variation in the kitchen was observed after 4 min. Particle concentration in an indoor environment was increased dramatically after 6 min. Further studies on the transmission mechanism of heat and particles from the kitchen space to an adjacent room under different cooking scenarios are needed for the design and control of kitchen ventilation.