Design and fabrication of a rocket stove for rural areas in Zimbabwe

Author

Chakandinakira, Vimbai L

Title

Design and fabrication of a rocket stove for rural areas in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Firewood is the major source of energy for cooking and heating in rural areas of Zimbabwe. Many households are using traditional three stone stoves for cooking. However, due to incomplete combustion, these stoves consumes a lot of firewood and this results in higher firewood usage and leads to deforestation and environmental degradation. The purpose of this research was to manufacture a rocket stove which would be environmentally friendly and that can be adopted by rural households. The major goal was to reduce the rate of firewood demand in rural areas. Two stoves of different sizes were fabricated using different recycled materials from scrap yard, one was made of galvanic steel and the other one was made of steel. The stove consist of a heat riser, pot rest, the two feed tubes that is the air feed tube and the firewood fed tube. Performance tests of the manufactured prototypes and three stone stove as a control experiment was done using water boiling test. Same amount of water which was 2l with initial temperature of 22℃ and 3kg of wood was used for all the three experiments. The power output for the galvanic steel rocket stove and steel rocket stove was found to be 0.31KW and 0.27KW respectively. Thermal efficiency for galvanic steel rocket stove was found to be 39.2% and 30.6% for steel rocket stove. Results obtained shows that the taken to boil 2l of water to 98℃ was 12minutes for the galvanic steel rocket stove, 14minutes for the steel rocket stove and 25minutes for the traditional three stone stove. Complete combustion in rocket stoves was observed by comparing the amount of fuel burned and the amount of ashes produced. The results obtained shows that the stoves can reduce the amount of fuel needed for cooking. The results from the performance test shows that the system can be used by rural households and reduce the amount of firewood needed to prepare certain meals.

Date

June 2024

Publisher

BUSE

Keywords

Rocket Stove,

Firewood

Environment

Thermal Efficiency.

Supervisor

Professor Rodriguez, Isnel