[Stoves] Lowering emissions

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Frank

I agree that your proposal would find the bulk density.

What is really difficult to determine us the best conditions for burning a 
fuel.  There certainly is no 'box' that will give you an answer because some 
boxes are preheating  air, running complex heat flows, bringing in secondary 
air, insulating portions and not other and so on.

The point is that when the 'best' is arguable, there is no way to deal with 
fuel packing.  Packing is part of the combustion process / operation of the 
stove.  Another person could operate the same stove with a different fuel 
packing strategy and get better emissions.

I think a Rocket Stove could arguably be described as not have a fuel 
packing rate at all because it can be varied at will.  In top loaders / 
batch loaders the packing is very important and the quantity of fuel is 
related to the moisture and surface area/volume ratio.  Different woods need 
different strategies, also age and length.

It is about as complicated as anything you can think of!

Regards
Crispin

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "frank" <frank at compostlab.com>
I think a classification of fuels and fuel packing is really needed.  It
would be an easy  thing to do if one was to take a container shaped like
the fire box being used, fill with fuel much the same as when filling
the stove fire box then pour in sand to get the particle density, bulk
density and void space. Numbers you need are:
Volume of fire box (ruler)
Wt sand that fills the fire box (scale)
wt wet fuel in filled fire box (scale)
wt of sand that flows in around fuel (scale)
...