Browsing by Author "Lemma, Kahsay"

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    Designing, Simulating and Manufacturing of Improved Charcoal Stove
    (Addis Ababa University, 2020-12) Lemma, Kahsay; Kamil, Dino (PhD)
    Nearly 2.7 billion people in the world depend on biomass for cooking. Charcoal fuel is a solid biomass fuel which is widely used in urban and semi-urban areas of Ethiopia. However, these fuels are combusted inside thermally inefficient stoves. One solution to such problem could be designing, manufacturing and disseminating improved stoves. Thus, this study aims at designing, simulating and manufacturing an improved charcoal stove to maximize the thermal performance. Designing the stove has been performed by solid work. Besides, simulation has been performed by CFD module which is found in COMSOL Multiphysics software. This module includes coupled sub models representing fluid flow and heat transfer. From the simulation temperature distribution, velocity distribution and pressure distribution in the grate holes and on the combustion chamber of the stove were analyzed. The simulation shows that the increased temperature results in higher firepower, which leads to higher thermal performance of the stove. The prototype was tested using the Water Boiling Test (WBT) protocol. The simulation results were compared and validated with experimental results. Based on simulation thermal efficiency obtained was 34.7%. With regard to experimental investigation, the thermal efficiency of the stove is 32.6% and its specific fuel consumption is 56 g of fuel/ liter of water. The study showed an improvement in thermal performance of the charcoal stove. The specific fuel consumption of the prototype charcoal stove shows 70% improvement compared to the three-stone fire. Generally, the new prototype charcoal stove has better thermal performance compared to the previous designs proposed by other researchers. Therefore, disseminating our improved charcoal stove at a larger scale in Ethiopia will be beneficial in preservation of forests and associated ecosystem services and will improve health for households.