Performance evaluation of improved cook stoves

Abstract

An experiment has been carried out on various types of cook stoves including traditional cook stoves, sukhad model, udairaj and improved udairaj models, with which the water-boiling test has been performed to find the thermal efficiency, specific fuel consumption and power rating. The results revealed that Udairaj cook stove and traditional cook stove was found to have the highest and lowest thermal efficiency of 23.4% and 15.4% among the cook stoves tested. Udairaj and improved udairaj cook stoves have similar power rating and lowest specific fuel consumption in the range of 0.811 kW to 0.849 kW and 1.232 kg/kWh to 1.225 kg/kWh respectively, whereas traditional cook stove was found to have the lowest power rating of 0.559 Kwh and highest specific fuel consumption of 1.799 kg/Kwh. Finally, both udairaj and improved udairaj cook stoves have a better thermal efficiency, power rating and specific fuel consumption than traditional cook stoves.