Abstract:
The solar energy is arguably the most widely available and abundant energy resource. The energy scarcity, energy cost for cooking purpose, indoor pollution and the time spent in gathering fuel woods are the main problems that leads us to study and develop the cooker. The purpose of this study is to design, develop and to investigate the performance of a double exposure solar cooker. In this study the effects of reflected surface in the box and parabola which is disposed under the box parts of the cooker were studied in independently under the same climatic condition. During stagnation test the average temperature and solar isolation of the day (June 10/2017) is 28.70C and 648.3W/m2 respectively that resulted stagnation plate temperature of 152.20C. The “First figure of merit” of the cooker is 0.127 which represents the cooker marked as grade-A solar cooker. The test also conducted by removing the parabolic flat reflectors. During these test the “First figure of merit” is 0.088, which leads the cooker marked as Grade-B solar cooker (according to American Society of Agricultural Engineers and Bureau of Indian Standards testing standard).
A comparative experimental study of double exposure solar cooker with two different cooking vessels was conducted, the first one conventional and the second one identical to the first in shape and volume but its external lateral surface provided with fins. Fins are shown to improve the heat transfer from the internal hot air of the cooker towards the interior of the vessel where the food to be cooked is placed. The experimental test results show that under the same climatic condition and equal cooking time, the temperature of finned cooking vessel reaches 93.6oC while the un-finned cooking vessel is 88.8oC. The power test also conducted for finned and un-finned cooking vessels. The coefficient of determination or proportion of variation in cooking power that can be attributed to the relationship found by regression for finned and un finned cooking vessel is 0.9528 and 0.8952 respectively. The overall efficiency of the cooker also evaluated for both finned and unfinned cooking vessel under the same climatic condition by limiting the time in 60 min, boiling efficiency of finned and un-finned cooking is 86% an 69% respectively.
The evaluation of the economic analysis of the system is financially feasible (benefit- cost ratio = 1.37). The capital cost of the system is 4657.18ETB with the yearly maintenance cost of 335.75ETB which can use efficiently for five years and pay back the capital cos in three years.