CAPSTONE PROJECT

SOLAR COOKER FOR INDOOR COOKING

A ONE YEAR PROJECT REPORT FOR LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING (M3904)

SUBMITTED TO

SUBMITTED BY NISHANT MEHTA- 10900848 ANKUSH KHURANA-10907576 RUPESH KUMAR-10905486

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Abstract Overview Problem statement of our project Comparison with existing & new modified Work done till now Future work Constructional details References

ABSTRACT:

The main aim of this project is to focus on the non conventional energy resources especially the source of energy we get from the sun and convert them into secondary energy resources and save our conventional resources such as fossils fuel etc. And it is also an approach to control on pollution of the environment by using non conventional resources and make eco friendly environment for the future generation. As the competition continue to get tougher organization worldwide under continuing pressure to control cost, maintain high level of quality and meet customers requirement and fulfil their expectation the marching trend of new economic order has generated a new solar cooker which is a unified approach to process excellence. For most of human existence, the cooking of food was unknown. People ate food in the condition in which they found it. Then humans found that fire could be controlled and used to cook food. Fire is essentially solar power stored in the form of wood. If we look at it this way, solar was the first method of cooking on earth. The first known person to build a box to solar cook food was Horase de Saussure, a Swiss naturalist. He cooked fruits in a primitive solar box cooker that reached temperatures of 190F. He was the grandfather of solar cooking. The present project work carried out at the solar cooker for indoor cooking with an objective is to improve the efficiency of the cooker with the help of a automatic tracking device respectively.

EXISTENCE OF IDEA: The idea of doing this project exists in our mind when we came to know about the oil crisis of 1973. The 1973 brought an era of secure and cheap oil. Oil prices shot up fourfold causing a severe energy crisis the world over. And the recent increasing in the prices of fuel and scarcity of fossil fuels and increase in the pollution and global warming across the world forced us to focus our idea on solar energy.

NEED OF SOLAR COOKERS: High cost or Unavailability of commercial fuels Kerosene, Coal, Gas, Electricity Deforestation caused by Increasing Firewood Consumption Use of Dung and Agricultural Waste as Fuels Instead of for Soil Enrichment Diversion of Human Resources for Fuel Gathering

INTRODUCTION:

A solar cooker, or solar oven, is a device which uses the energy of sunlight to heat food or drink to cook it or sterilize it. However at present they are very unusual because they are expensive. The vast majority of the solar cookers presently in use are relatively cheap, lowtech devices. Because they use no fuel and cost nothing to operate, many nonprofits organizations are promoting their use worldwide to help reduce fuel costs for low-income people, reduce air pollution and slow deforestation and desertification, caused by use of firewood for cooking. Solar cooking is a form of outdoor cooking and indoor cooking is often used in situations where minimal fuel consumption is important, or the danger of accidental fires is high. Solar cookers are the safest and cleanest mode of cooking food. They utilize solar energy, which is available freely and abundantly, to cook food. Solar cookers are being promoted extensively in countries like India, China and number of African countries which are rich in solar energy. Depending upon the method in which solar energy is utilized in solar cookers, they are divided into various types.

The principle ways of cooking food are Boiling, Frying, Roasting, and Baking:
Heat losses during cooking Vaporization of water Heating food to boiling temperature Convection losses from vessel : 35 per cent : 20 per cent : 45 per cent

Solar cooker should be designed to provide about 1.0 kW of energy which can be obtained with 2.0 sqm of collector area with 50 per cent efficiency.

PRINCIPLE OF COOKING:
The quantity of heat required for physical and chemical changes involved in cooking are small compared to the sensible heat of increasing food temperature and energy required for meeting heat losses that normally occur in cooking. Once the contents of the vessel have been sensibly heated up to the cooking temperature (100rC), the speed of cooking is practically independent of heat rate as long as thermal losses are supplied. Differences in the time required to cook equal quantities of food in cookers of various heat supply capabilities are due mainly to different sensible heating up periods.

TYPES OF SOLAR COOKER:

Box Type Solar Cookers:
These are most widely used type of solar cookers. They can be rectangular or circular in shape. The box type of solar cooker comprises of the enclosed space where the vessel containing the raw food is kept. At the top of the box there is a glass that allows the sunrays to pass through it and get concentrated inside the box.

There are two methods of cooking the food. In first type the concentrated sunrays directly fall of the cooking vessel and cook the food. In the second method, a black surface is applied in the inner surface of box, which absorbs the sunrays and converts it into heat thus heating the food and creating a mini greenhouse effect. In either case the box is covered with the insulating material to avoid heat leaking out. It could also include a reflective surface at the top of the box instead of glass.

Panel Type of Solar Cookers:

These are very cheap solar cookers, and the easiest to construct. These are also known as Cook it models. Panel solar cookers comprise of four panels, which are covered with a reflective material like aluminium foil. Sunlight falling on the panels is reflected to the middle portion of the box formed by the panels, where the cooking vessel is kept. Due to concentrated sunrays the food gets heated and cooked. The panels are ordinary cardboard on which the aluminium foil, similar to the one found in cigarette packets, is applied.

Though they are easy to make, they are less effective in windy atmospheres as the heat will be blown away. They are also not able to absorb sufficient quantity of heat in cloudy atmosphere.

Parabolic Type of Solar Cookers:

The parabolic type of solar cooker comprises of reflective metal sheets joined together to form an umbrella sort of shape. When the sunrays fall on the metal sheets the energy is concentrated into a small area, where the cooking vessel is placed. In the parabolic solar cooker solar energy is highly concentrated; hence they are the fastest type of all the solar cookers.

The parabolic type of solar cookers requires precision design so that the solar energy gets concentrated at the exact right place. If the concentrated energy does not falls on the cooking vessel, the food will not cook efficiently.

INDOOR SOLAR COOKER:

This solar cooker has been developed for indoor cooking. It consists of solar concentrator which is known as primary reflector. The shape of primary reflector is paraboloidal and it is equipped with tracking devices to track rays of sun. The reflector reflects the sun rays into the kitchen through an opening in its north wall. A secondary reflector further concentrates the rays on to the bottom of the cooking pot, which is painted in black color. It can cook all types of food for about 40-50 people and save up to 30 lpg cylinder in a year with optimum use.

Features:
The Solar Cooker works on the principle of solar energy concentration using a Reflecting Parabolic Solar Concentrator. It consists parabolic solar concentrator Part A is used For concentrating solar radiation on a focal area where the cooking vessel is placed.

With the help of a simple automatic tracking system. The solar disc rotates in the direction of the movement of the give continuous and accurate solar energy concentration . This device is made up to a simple clock mechanism to provide regulated tracking motion to follow the path of the sun throughout the day and gives about 6-8 hours of operation time.

Advantages:
Solar cookers use no fuel, which means that their users do not need to fetch or pay for firewood, gas, electricity, or other fuels. Therefore, over time a solar cooker can pay for itself in reduced fuel costs. Since it reduces firewood use, the solar cooker reduces deforestation and habitat loss. Since there are about 2 billion people who are still cooking on open fires, widespread use of solar cookers could have large economic and environmental benefits. Solar box cookers attain temperatures of up to about 165 deg. C (325 deg. F), so they can be used to sterilize water or prepare most foods that can be made in a conventional oven or stove, from baked bread to steamed vegetables to roasted meat. When solar ovens are placed outside, they do not contribute unwanted heat inside houses. Solar cookers do not produce any smoke as a product of combustion. Unlike cooking over an open fire, children cannot be burned by touching many types of solar cookers, which are made from cardboard or plastic and do not get hot. Unlike all fuel-based cooking arrangements, these solar cookers are not fire hazards. However, solar cookers that concentrate sunlight, e.g. with paraboloidal reflectors, do produce high temperatures which could cause injury or fire.

Disadvantages:
Solar cookers are less usable in cloudy weather and at high latitudes, so some fuel-based backup heat source must still be available in these conditions. Also, solar cooking provides hot food during or shortly after the hottest part of the day, rather than the evening when most people like to eat. The "integrated solar cooking" concept accepts these limitations, and includes a fuel-efficient stove and an insulated heat storage container to provide a complete solution. Many solar cookers take longer time to cook food than a fuel-based oven. Using these solar cookers therefore requires that food preparation be started several hours before the meal. However, it requires less hands-on time cooking, so this is often considered a reasonable trade-off. Some solar cooker designs are affected by strong winds, which can slow the cooking process, cool the food, and disturb the reflector. In these cases it is necessary to anchor the reflector with string and weights.

Comparison with existing & new modified:

The existing model is quite complicated & its initial cost is very high. It is mostly used for outdoor purposes. In existing model mechanical tracking devices are used & we are using electronic controlled tracking devices which will track the motion of sun across the sky ensuring that the maximum amount of sun light strikes the panel throughout the day. There are mostly two types of tracking devices, they are: - single axis and double axis models. Single axis solar trackers can either have a horizontal or a vertical axle. The horizontal type is used in tropical regions where the sun gets very high at noon, but the days are short. The vertical type is used in high latitudes where the sun does not get very high, but summer days can be very long. Double axis solar trackers have both a horizontal and a vertical axle and so can track the Sun's apparent motion exactly anywhere in the World. This type of system is used to control astronomical telescopes, and so there is plenty of software available to automatically predict and track the motion of the sun across the sky.

Construction & details:

OVERVIEW OF MODEL:

PART A: parabolic dish anodized aluminium sheet having an aperture diameter of 1.8 m and focal length 0.30 m.(primary reflector) PART B: Electronically controlled tracker PART C: secondary reflector PART D: Cooking pot

Problem statement of our project:

A critical task in developing this project is to identify the reflector materials that would be both suitable for this application as well as economical. We search for available reflective materials that can be used on large concentration devices. A great deal of time has been spent on this search for the perfect material. The perfect material would of course be one that provides high optical reflectance, is ultra violet ray resistant, is durable in a variety of environmental and abusive conditions, is pliable, can be easily attached to a substrate, is available internationally, and last but not least, is economical. The main problem in our project is tracking devices that can track all the sun rays & move along with the direction of the sun. Another major problem is existing in our project is storing of energy when the climate is adverse & in night time.

Work done till now:

We have gathered various in formations, regarding this project from various resources. Study about the types of material used in the solar cooker. Among many reflectors we are going to use parabolic reflector instead of different types of reflector. Also we have studied about the different atmospheric factors which affecting the performance of solar cooker. Finally we conclude that these conditions should be verified to approach the maximum efficiency for indoor cooking. A kitchen with the following features will be the best to exploit the cooking potential of this cooker: The north wall of the kitchen should be available for making the opening for entry of concentrated solar radiation and positioning the secondary reflector. There should be sufficient space (about 6 to 8 m) in front of the North wall of the kitchen to install the solar cooker facing south. The north wall should not be very high (preferably only a single storey height) so that the concentrator located outside the kitchen on this side gets full exposure to sun. There should not be any other building/structure/trees very near to the kitchen, which may cast shadow on the concentrator standing in front of the North wall. In case, the above features are not available, a separate shed may have to be constructed near the solar cooker for cooking food under the shade

Future work:
We have to design that model of indoor solar cooker for the given specification as mentioned below: 1. 2. Function Specification i. Type and Model : : : Parabolic indoor cooking type cooking of rice, dhal, vegetable and egg

ii. Reflector material film t iii. aperture diameter iv. Number of vessel 3. 4. 5. Cost of the unit Cost of operation Salient features

Metalized polyester

aperture diameter of 1.8 m and focal length 0.30 m.

16 (Aluminium)

: : :

Rs. 6000 /- to 10000 /Rs. 0.75/h

Time taken for cooking 8 kg parboiled rice : 150 min

6 kg parboiled rice + 1 kg red gram + 1kg beetroot : 160 min

It is a parabolic dish created by the revolution of parabola. Typically, the dish is made up of anodized aluminium sheet having an aperture diameter of 1.8 m and focal length 0.30 m. It is desired that the reflectance of the aluminium sheet is greater than 80% with durability to last for five years or more without replacement. This design is useful for homes & small establishments. The cooker needs to be tracked manually to continue facing the sun in normal direction. This is necessary as the concentrating designs use predominantly only the direct component of the incoming solar radiation. Typically, the tracking period could be 15 20 minutes. It has a delivering power of about 0.7 kW, which can boil 1 to 3 liters.The stagnation temperature at the bottom of the cooking pot could be over 300oC depending upon the weather conditions.

This system besides the cooking function -twice a day, can be utilized for water heating during the non-use period. The hot water can be used for cleaning cooking and other utensils . These Solar Concentrators can also be used for industrial applications for heating water or other liquid. This device is an ideal renewable energy application for saving conventional energy costs in community kitchens to a great extent. Kitchens operated by ashrams, educational institutions, hostels, hospitals, religious places, etc. can effectively utilize the Community Solar Cooker.

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