When using a local exhaust hood to remove harmful substances from the production process, the exhaust airflow rate must be calculated according to the capturing velocity specified by the relevant regulations. The Numano and American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) equations are used in Japan and the US, respectively, for estimating the exhaust airflow rate of slot hoods. However, these equations differ from each other, and when using these equations to calculate the exhaust airflow rate of the capture hood, whether using Japan's equation or ACGIH, the hood type (slot or rectangular hood) should be distinguished at first. Therefore, this study performs experiments and a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation to investigate the relationship between the centerline velocity and the aspect ratio for five types of capture hoods. The results showed good agreement between simulated and experimental centerline velocities when the distance from the hood face. A dimensionless velocity was introduced and a significant difference in the relationship between the centerline velocity and the distance from the hood face with different aspect ratios was found. A unified equation was obtained that can express the relationship between exhaust airflow rate and centerline velocity regardless of the aspect ratio of the hood face of the free-standing capture hood.
Keywords: Aspect ratio; Centerline velocity; Computational fluid dynamics (CFD); Dimensionless; Local exhaust ventilation; Slot capture hood.