Design and Experimental Investigation of Solar Cooker with Thermal Energy Storage
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Date
2018-11
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Cooking is the major necessity for people all over the world. It accounts for a major share
of energy consumption in developing countries. Therefore, there is a critical need for the
development of alternative and affordable methods of cooking. Solar cooking is a novel
and eco-friendly method of harnessing sun’s energy. Solar cookers can be of a great use
in saving fuel and enabling in eco-friendly cooking of food.
Solar energy is available during daytime only and also intermittent. So, thermal storage is
important for indoor solar cooking requirements and will ensure continuity of service, reduce
the use of conventional energy, and give a reasonable cooking time compared with
conventional cooking. The solar cooker designed for this study is1.5
aperture area of
compound parabolic dish concentrator integrated with thermal storage media (1.5litter of oil
and 0.74kg of rock) as an absorber (area of 0.4
)to increase the duration of the effective
energy storage period without tracking and utilize thermal energy for night cooking.
The overall system is designed with an assumption to cook 1kg of rice in 45minutes requiring
power of 522W which is obtained from the stored energy from the sun. Therefore, the
numerical simulation, experimental test, and validation of the two results are done. An
absorber with thermal storage is simulated by COMSOL software to show temperature
distribution. As it is shown in the simulation section, the temperature of TES could
reach365K after 6hours. Where as in the experimental result, due to so many losses the
energy reduced in some extent and it reaches 354K. Even if it has low energy, it can cook
the required food by placing TES in the insulated tank during discharging. Therefore, there
were deviations between experiment and simulation because the model did not account the
basic losses and frustration of solar radiation in case of numerical simulation. The model of
the TES system was validated with experimental results and a brief reason was found between
experiment and simulation for the charging cycle.
The discharging of TES is started after it is lifted from solar collector and it is placed on the
insulated tank and loaded by pot with water. This is maximum temperature of water reached
after 40 minutes is 355K (82℃).
Description
Keywords
Solar Cooker, hermal Energy Storage