Numerical study of cooking particle coagulation by using an Eulerian model

Airborne particles emitted in cooking process adversely affect human health and indoor air quality. In this work, we developed an Eulerian turbulence CFD model in combination with aerosol general dynamic equation (GDE) which is incorporated in a commercial CFD tool to investigate coagulation process of indoor particles. Experiments were conducted in a small scale chamber at different temperatures. In general, particles with a diameter range of 14-250 nm were measured and five different coagulation mechanisms including van der Waals, viscous forces and fractal effects were tested. The simulated results show good agreement with the experimental data. The coagulation coefficients with chamber temperatures of 22 °C, 42 °C, 62 °C and 82 °C were also calculated to elucidate the temperature effect on particle concentration. The validated model was applied to study water-boiling process in an environmental chamber. The temporal development of airflow temperatures and number concentrations of particles emitted by boiling water was investigated.