Meeting the challenges of a commercial kitchen environment is a big deal and hence often over-looked. In a commercial kitchen, working conditions are especially demanding. Ventilation plays an important role in providing comfortable and productive working conditions while ensuring complete control over contaminant removal.

Ventilation and air conditioning systems are used in commercial kitchens because:

– air quality is affected by odors and particles of grease
– air quality requirements must be met
– heat created due to convection and radiation must be removed
– moisture created by preparation of meals and washing must be removed
– Comfortable and productive working conditions should be maintained.
– Odor from the kitchen area should not migrate to dining area and outdoors
– Operating Cost shall be reduced maintaining the above conditions

Kitchen ventilation system design requires the expertise of many different specialists to produce designs that meet the requirements of productive and cost-effective working environments. The decisions of various designers strongly affect each other. Owners and end-users are important players in the design process as well as cooking and ventilation equipment manufacturers. Due to the wide diversity of their expertise, a common understanding is needed to accelerate the process and to fulfill the set targets.

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) becomes an important tool to measure the performance of the ventilation system and validate the design thus ensuring the satisfactory environmental condition inside the kitchen.

Given below is an example of kitchen ventilation system for commercial kitchen. The goal of analysis was to examine the designed ventilation system effectiveness inside the ‘Kitchen Area’ using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Analysis.

• Proper air distribution is to be maintained with the installed system.
• Heat being generated by cooking process and cooking process is getting removed.
• Moisture and excess humid air is getting removed from the kitchen area.

The 3D model for simulation was prepared as per the architectural drawings and layout received. Equipment and occupants heat load were assigned. HVAC systems were modeled as per the design and accordingly simulation was performed and the results were analysed.