Thermal efficiency and Specific Consumption of Solar box type cooker

Pittu Manohara Reddy 1212MER

Objective : Thermal testing of a box type solar cooker: Determination of first and second figure of merits along with Thermal efficiency and Specific consumption. Equipment : Box type solar cooker Digital panel meters Thermocouples Weighing Balance The experimental solar-energy cooker is of the hot-box type. The essential features of the cooker are illustrated below. The features introduced to enhance the overall performance of the design over the traditional solar-energy box cooker include, a steam-relief line which helps to let off steam from the cooking chamber thus keeping the cooker tidy and inhibiting corrosion of the absorber plate, a specular plane mirror reflector, which increases the magnitude of solar radiation incident on the cooker surface.

No load Test: The First Figure of merit is obtained by keeping the solar cooker in the sunshine in the morning and allowing the plate temperature to rise gradually. Record the plate temperature ,ambient temperature and solar intensity regularly. Soon after the solar noon the plate temperature becomes quasi steady and the Stagnation temperature is reached. Figure of merit is calculated using below equation

Date : 13th Nov 2013 No Tracking Horizontal Solar Intensity MJ/m2 Time Total Solar radiation (W/m2) Ta Tp 0.173 10:20 288.3333333 27.3 47.0 0.174 10:30 290 27.9 71.1 0.188 10:40 313.3333333 28.4 82.7 0.192 10:50 320 29.7 90.4 0.2 11:00 333.3333333 29.5 96.1 0.206 11:10 343.3333333 30.2 99.7 0.206 11:20 343.3333333 30.8 102.2 0.214 11:30 356.6666667 31.3 104.7 0.209 11:40 348.3333333 31.2 106.3 0.21 11:50 350 32.3 106.7 0.211 12:00 351.6666667 32.0 106.5 0.217 12:10 361.6666667 32.1 105.4 0.206 12:20 343.3333333 31.5 104.4 0.2 12:30 333.3333333 31.0 102.1 0.184 12:40 306.6666667 31.4 99.2 0.174 12:50 290 31.5 94.9 0.173 13:00 288.3333333 31.0 93.6

Full Load Test: The test for the second figure of merit consists of operating the solar cooker with full load utensils with contents. The cooker is kept outside in the sun in the morning and the water temperature is allowed to rise gradually until it reaches the boiling point. The second figure of merit is calculated using the below equation

Time 10:20 10:30 10:40 10:50 11:00 11:10 11:20 11:30 11:40 11:50 12:00 12:10 12:20 12:30 12:40 12:50 13:00

Date : 13th Nov 2013 No Tracking Horizontal Total Solar radiation(w/m2) Ta Tw 288.3333333 27.3 30.8 290 27.9 42.4 313.3333333 28.4 51.9 320 29.7 60.3 333.3333333 29.5 67.0 343.3333333 30.2 71.6 343.3333333 30.8 76.6 356.6666667 31.3 78.9 348.3333333 31.2 82.3 350 32.3 83.6 351.6666667 32.0 84.5 361.6666667 32.1 84.9 343.3333333 31.5 85.2 333.3333333 31.0 84.9 306.6666667 31.4 84.6 290 31.5 83.5 288.3333333 31.0 83.3

Cooking Test : Date : 15th Nov 2013 Horizontal No Tracking Before Test Vessel Rice Water Total Start time After Test End time Total 11:12 02:07 854 gm 260 200 400 860 gm gm gm gm

Results : Figure Of merit 1 = 0.2133 Figure of merit 2 = 0.0305 Thermal efficiency = 15.98 % Specific Consumption = 5.0084 MJ/kg

Reference H.P. Garg, T.C. Kandpal : Laboratory Manual on Solar Thermal Experiments

Calculations Solar box type Cooker.xls ( added with this file)