Design Simulation Manufacturing And Testing Of A Low-cost Tube Type Direct Solar Oven

Ethiopia is rated as number four country in the world for solar cooking potential by the SolarrnCookers International (SCI) in 2020. The country had an estimate of 24,200,000 people whornlive in areas that have good solar cooking power potential but with fuel scarcity. Shortage ofrnelectrical coverage in most parts of the country has led to high biomass dependency for energyrndemand. The household baking accounting for more than half of this energy, the country facesrna great deforestation scale of around 200,000ha per year. Indoor pollution and hard labor ofrnwomen and children are also results of this situation. Thus, this research focuses on designing,rnsimulating, manufacturing and testing of a tube type direct solar oven which is low cost andrneasy to manufacture at the local markets of Ethiopia. The tube type direct solar oven is designedrnto bake 1kg of bread dough. It has a cylindrical oven inside an air tight transparent tube thatrnacts as an insulation for the oven. For low cost and ease of fabrication the air tight transparentrnouter cover is a square prism made of 4 plastic (acrylic) plates. The solar oven is made of lightrnmaterials which are easy to find locally. Thus, it has the advantage of being portable andrnaffordable. Simulation of the solar ray’s trajectory using COMSOL Multiphysics showed thatrnall the incidence rays falling on the parabolic trough will reflect back on to the receiver for arn0º incidence angle. And the bread baking simulation using COMSOL took 35min to bake 1kgrnof bread dough which is 5minutes longer than the analytical design. Tests conducted on thernmanufactured solar oven showed that the standard cooking power of the solar oven at 700W/mrn 3rn rn2rnrnis 98W. The actual bread baking time of the oven was longer than the designed and simulatedrnresults due to quality in manufacturing and quality of materials used. But the economic analysisrnshowed that the tube type direct solar oven is al low-cost effective baking tool with a shortrnpayback period resulting in an initial investment of $100 and a maximum payback period ofrn4months and 24days. Thus, the tube type direct solar oven is an easy to manufacture, easy tornuse low-cost direct solar oven that has a potential of being widely accepted by the Ethiopianrnsociety for its economic and environmental advantages.

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