Abstract

                               More than half the kitchens in the world use traditional wood burning stoves for cooking. The traditional stove involves burning of wood in open which leads to inefficient combustion with 5 to 10 % thermal efficiency. In this study, highly improved stoves were designed and developed by varying height, shape and air supply. It was observed that the cylinder shaped stoves performed with higher thermal efficiency than the frustum stoves. The height of the combustion chamber was optimized at 12 cm with better combustion (19.83%) and higher heat transfer rate (20.15%). The primary air supply of 80 % and secondary air of 20 % resulted in higher combustion temperature (660.9 °C) and lesser air pollutants of 0.82 g L-1 (CO) and 142 g L^-1 (HC). The cylindrical combustion chamber of height 12 cm with primary sir supply and secondary air supply of 80 and 20 %, respectively resulted to higher thermal efficiency of 22.86 %, specific fuel consumption of 0.59 kg L^-1 and heat transfer efficiency of 23.08 %.

Key words : Mud stove, combustion chamber, thermal efficiency, specific fuel consumption