ASTM F1704 In 1990, AGA Laboratories was funded

By admin on November 19th, 2007

ASTM F1704

In 1990, AGA Laboratories was funded by the Gas
Research Institute to construct a state-of-the-art
kitchen ventilation laboratory and research the
interaction between cooking appliances, kitchen
ventilation hoods, and the kitchen environment.
In early 1993, the original Energy Balance Protocol
was developed to explain the interaction between the
heat loads in the kitchen. Mathematically, the energy
consumed by the cooking appliance can only go three
places:
to the food being cooked
out of the exhaust duct
into the kitchen as heat load
In late 1993, this was introduced as a draft standard to
be adopted by ASTM and was called the Energy
Balance Protocol. The original protocol was developed
to only examine the energy interactions in the kitchen
with the goal of determining how much heat was
released into the kitchen from cooking under a variety
of conditions. This standard was adopted by ASTM as
F1704.

Around 1995, the standard adopted new methods of
determining the capture and containment using a
variety of visualisation techniques including visual
observation, neutrally buoyant bubbles, smoke, lasers,
and Schlieren thermal imaging (discussed in more
detail later in this section).
The test set up includes a hood system operating over
a given appliance. Several thermocouple trees are
placed from 1.8 m to 2.5 m. in the front of the hood
system and are used to measure the heat gain to the
kitchen space. This enables researchers to determine
the temperature of room air being extracted into the
hood.
In theory, when the hood is providing sufficient
capture and containment, all of the convective plume
from the appliance is exhausted by the hood while the
remaining radiant load from the appliance is heating
up the hood, kitchen walls, floors, ceiling, etc. that are
eventually seen as heat in the kitchen.

During the 1950 s Schlieren thermal imaging was used by AGA
Laboratories to evaluate gas combustion with several
different burner technologies. NASA has also made
significant use of Schlieren thermal imaging as a means
of evaluating shockwaves for aircraft, the space shuttle,
and jet flows. In the 1990 s Penn State University
began using Schlieren visualisation techniques to
evaluate heat flow from computers, lights, and people
in typical home or office environments. In 1998 the
kitchen ventilation lab in Chicago purchased the first
Schlieren system to be used in the kitchen ventilation
industry. In 1999, the Halton Company became the first
ventilation manufacturer globally to utilise a Schlieren
thermal Imaging system for use in their research and
development efforts.
By using the thermal imaging system we can visualise
all the convective heat coming off an appliance and
determine whether the hood system has sufficient
capture and containment. In addition to verifying
capture and containment levels, the impact of various
supply air and air distribution measures can be
incorporated to determine the effectiveness of each.
By using this technology a more complete
understanding of the interaction between different
components in the kitchen (e.g., appliances, hoods,
make-up air, supply diffusers, etc.) is being gained.