Abstract:
Solar cookers are good alternatives for traditional ways of cooking. But it is not an easy task to transfer the solar cooking technology to the community. Longer cooking time requirement, cooking outdoor which is not of socially viable and requirement for hourly tracking for better performance, which requires attending every time interval in outdoor at sunny day, are the problems in disseminating these cookers.
In this thesis work, double exposure solar cooker which has plane reflectors from top and ACPC from side walls is designed and fabricated. The box cooker is rectangular shape with an aspect ratio of 2.66 and overall dimension of 920 𝑚𝑚 × 350𝑚𝑚 × 400𝑚𝑚. Stagnation tests conducted on the double exposure and conventional solar box cooker give a maximum absorber plate temperature of 145 0C and 122 0C achieved at 12: 30 hour and 12:40 hour respectively. The respective first figure of merit values are 0.123 and 0.088, the former satisfying minimum requirement as per BIS. For the water load test, it takes 2 hours and 30 minutes for 2 liters of water to boil in the DESC while in conventional cooker water doesn’t reach its boiling point, water heats to a maximum temperature of 88 0c. Experimental test results for both double exposure and conventional cooker are presented, each having satisfactory performance. The maximum cooking power calculated is 125.1 W and 111.2 W for the modified and conventional cooker respectively, while the respective minimum value is 16.7 W and 13.9 W.
Cooking on different food types gives good results. 1 kg of rice distributed in two pots was cooked in 1 hour and 35 minutes the rice being cooked together with water at start up not after water boils and 1 kg of bean was cooked in 2 hour and 45 minutes. The double exposure cooker is therefore able to cook 2 hard meals like bean and 4 soft meals like rice and spaghetti per day. The cost of the developed cooker is 3550 Birr with a payback period of 2.47 years.