[Stoves] Institutional Stove Projects

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Joel

You certainly have an interesting PhD topic.

Every fire and stove requires mechanical power, in that air must be moved to 
the combustion location. This can be done with natural draft or forced 
draft.

I would suggest that from a fundamental standpoint, the first priority 
should be to ensure that air is delivered efficiently and effectively to the 
combustion location. If this is done and the fundamentals are met, then all 
remaining heat is
a: Useful (stove heat)
b: Semi-useful (heat loss from stove system to surroundings)
c: Waste (excess stack loss)

One very obvious use of waste heat is for electrical power generation. It 
seems that a lot of work is being done in this area.

What about direct mechanical power generation? For example, a "pumping 
engine" that provides forced draft through movement of a diaphragm with 
heated air? A lot of work was done with Sterling (Sterling?) Engines, and 
the heat transfer technologies may be transferable to a draft producer. 
Possibly it might be advantageous to use a working fluid other than air.

Best wishes,

Kevin
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joel Chaney" <joel.chaney at gmail.com>
To: <stoves at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Monday, December 11, 2006 11:31 AM
Subject: [Stoves] Institutional Stove Projects


> sorry, slipped on the send button,
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> I've just started a PhD at Nottingham University on stove optimisation
> and using waste-heat. We're a small wood-burning stove research group
> (3 people!) In one of our projects we're thinking  of using waste-heat
> to do something useful like power a fan or produce electricity in a
> cheap and novel way. I'm trying to find out about what institutional
> scale stove projects are currently going on around the world. If your
> know of any or are involved, would you be able to email me
> information/contact details.
>
> Many Thanks
>
> Joel,
>
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