Abstract
The purpose of this research was the numerical simulation of the air flow field within a standard laboratory fume hood using the k-6 turbulence model. The study investigated the flow field at different sash openings. The results of the computation realized information on the hood entry losses and other design parameters that are of interest to the users, designers and owners of fume hoods. After the specification of the problem and generation of the mesh, the modeled hood was simulated using CFD-ACE TM , a commercial computational fluid dynamics software package. The code is based on the finite volume method. In defining the grid, due care was exercised in maintaining the cell aspect ratio and grid orthogonality within the recommended limits. The air flow patterns at full open sash compared favorably with experimental results. The results at lowered sash revealed air flow characteristics and slot volume flows that were not reported in previously published literature on fume hoods. These results along with smaller hood entry losses confirmed the better performance of fume hoods at sash openings that are less than half open. Further, comparison between the computed volume flow rates and published design data was favorable.
D'Sousa, Cedric Benedict (1997). Numerical simulation of the air flow field in a laboratory fume hood using the CFD-ACE(TM) computational fluid dynamics code. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -1997 -THESIS -D79.