A support approach for the conceptual design of energy-efficient cooker hoods

In Europe, kitchen hoods currently come with an energy label showing their energy efficiency class and other information regarding the energy consumption and noise level, as established by the European Energy Labelling Directive. Because of recent regulations, designs of cooker hoods must consider new issues, such as the evaluation of the energy efficiency, analysis of the energy consumption, and product lifecycle impact. Therefore, the development of eco-driven products requires Ecodesign tools to support eco-innovation and related sustainability improvements. The scope of the proposed research is to define a method and an agile and affordable platform tool that can support designers in the early estimation of product energy performance, including the calculation of energy efficiency indexes. The approach also considers the use of genetic algorithm methods to optimize the product configuration in terms of energy efficiency. The research context concerns large and small productions of kitchen hoods. The paper describes the methodological approach within the developed tool. The results show a good correlation between real efficiency values and calculated ones. A validation activity has been described, and a test case shows how to apply the proposed approach for the design of a new efficient product with an A-class Energy Efficiency Index.