Mountains of RelieF
Student Project 1
Project 3
Robert Chauvet, Ben Hallworth, Russell Johnson, William Nagge, Kevin Zhong
SUMMARY
The goal of this student project was to create a cook stove that could be seamlessly adopted in Nepal. Their stove design consists of two parts: 1) a brick-and-mortar rocket stove and 2) a galvanized steel finned chimney. It combusts wood efficiently because of the natural draft underneath the flame. The chimney pulls the combustion flue gases outside of the home. The combustion heats two cookpots and provides space heating. This stove is over 50% more efficient than traditional stoves with respect to wood fuel consumption. All materials can be locally sourced economically; the projected cost of this stove is $88.00.
PART 1: THE STOVE
The stove design consists of a clay stovetop custom molded to fit traditional Nepalis cooking pots. Holes in the top allow more heat to more efficiently transfer to these pots.
Components
Clay Cooktop
Accommodates two burners/pots and is custom molded from clay
Rebar Support
Provides a shelf for the wood to rest on and allows air flow underneath.
Metal Tray
Galvanized steel tray under the wood to collect ash.
Brick
Provides a rigid, easily to manufacture design, which insulates the combustion chamber.
Combustion
Combustion of deadfall and heating of the cooking pots occurs via the combustion chamber.
Natural Draft Airflow
Created by the temperature difference between the stove and the room, which provides the oxygen needed for combustion. This also pulls the flue gases through the chimney.
Flue Gases
From the wood combustion. Provides convection heat to the pots and flows into the chimney.
Combustion
Provides heat to the pots via radiation
PART 2: THE CHIMNEY
A chimney removes the harmful flue gases from the combustion area and releases them outside, which greatly reduces indoor air pollution. In this design, the steel chimney has galvanized steel fins bolted to both its interior and exterior. The fins increase surface area, to extract more heat from the flue gases for indoor space heating.
