[Stoves] AIT top-down burning stove

[Prof. S.C. Bhattacharya]

Dear Prof. Sanders,

The Regional programme funded by Sida was carried out during 1997-2005 in 3
phases. I was the coordinator of the programme upto December 2004.

We could not include everything we developed in the tecnology packages.
Also, the top-down burning stove was not an output of any main  activity of
the programme. Initial work on the stove was carried out in the sideline of
the main activities by my students (even before the Sida thing started) and
research staff; the final refinements were carried out by a research fellow
who came to work with me from Institute of energy, Vietnam. The work was
completed in the second phase by 1999, if I remember correctly. I am sure
there are some detailed drawings and reports somewhere both with me and at
AIT but I my filing of hard and soft copies has never been satisfactory ever
since I retired from AIT and lost those wonderful supportng staff.

We had tried different a number of interesting concepts including a
multi-stage approach in which one top-down burning stove is placed on
another. The upper stove is ignited first; by the time the flame in the
upper stove dies down, the top layer of biomass in the second stove is
already ignited. The upper stove is then removed and the lower stove takes
over (of course you have to shift the cooking pot from one stove to the
other). If necessary the burnt-out stove can be refilled with fuel and
placed below the actively burning stove. Thus theoretically one can have
continuous heat output using a two-stove combination with the upper stove
burning and lower one waiting to take over. You may like to check if your
TLUD stove works like this; in fact it should, with minor changes if needed
to help propogation of fire from the upper to the lower stove.

I keep track discssion in this list but cannot actively contribute since I
am still cornered by unfinished tasks and deadlines all the time.

Cheers.

S.C. Bhattacharya



On 3/15/07, psanders at ilstu.edu <psanders at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> Dear Professor,
>
> My apologies.  I let the IGS-2 info dominate, and I overlooked the
> "top-down
> burning" stove.  Yes, it could well be a TLUD style.
>
> I need some assistance to find more information about that top-down
> burning
> stove.  The website has 18 substantial reports.  And the "top-down
> burning"
> stove is not in the "Technology Package: Screw-press
> briquetting...."  Please
> direct me (us) to more information than what is on the photo gallery page.
>
> I am quite interested in the origins of that top-down burning stove in
> relation
> to TLUDs initiated by Tom Reed.  I know about the work by Mr. Punchibanda
> of
> Sri Lanka, but he has not provided me with information about how he got
> started
> with what has become known as TLUD gasifiers.  But Mr. Punchibanda
> definitely
> influenced Mr. Alexis Belonio of the Philippines who has done great work
> with
> the TLUD gasification of rice husks (raw, not as briquettes.).  I am also
> on
> the trail of one possible true TLUD in China, but that is another
> story, unless
> maybe they were influenced by your work.  So, I request your assistance.
>
> Any chance you or Mr. Punchibanda or Mr. Belonio being at the PCIA meeting
> in
> Bangalore on 20 to 24 March?
>
> With sincere appreciation of your excellent work on cookstoves and
> gasifiers.
>
> Paul
>
> Quoting "Prof. S.C. Bhattacharya" <sribasb at gmail.com>:
>
> > Before retirement from the Asian Institute of Technology (Thailand), two
> > stoves were developed under a Sida-funded regional project. The stoves
> are
> > briefly described below and their photographs are attached. The
> descriptions
> > and photographs and much more information on the prtoject can be found
> at
> > http://www.retsasia.ait.ac.th/photogallery.htm
> > Dissemination booklets giving design of some stoves are also abailable
> at
> > http://www.retsasia.ait.ac.th/booklets.htm. Information on stoves and
> > briquetting is available in the Technology packages on screw-press
> > briquetting machines and briquette-fired stoves.
> > The top-down burning stove is basically similar to the TLUD stove it
> seems.
> >
> > --------------------
> > 1) The Institutional Gasifier Stove (IGS-2) consists of five main parts:
> a
> > fuel storage hopper, reaction chamber, primary air inlet, combustion
> chamber
> > and a 2-pot support. Experimental results indicate an average efficiency
> of
> > 17% with ricehusk briquettes (two-pot configuration), 27% with wood
> chips
> > and 22% with wood twigs as fuel. The stove appears to be promising for
> > community type cooking, particularly for institutional kitchens and
> > traditional cottage industries.
> >
> > 2) The top-down burning appears to be able to burn biomass with much
> less
> > smoke compared with conventional burning. In top-down concept, some
> kindling
> > is put at the top of the fuel bed and ignited. The fire moves
> progressively
> > down through the layers of the fuel. The main advantage of the top-down
> > concept is minimal smoking. The two-pot top-burning stove jointly
> developed
> > by the Institute of Energy, Vietnam and AIT, Thailand could use ricehusk
> > briquettes and wood chips/twigs as fuel.
> >
> > S.C. Bhattacharya
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> This message was sent using Illinois State University Webmail.
>
>
>


-- 
Prof. S.C. Bhattacharya, Ph.D. (Cambridge, UK)
President, International Energy Initiative
164/6 Prince Anwar Shah Road
Lake Gardens (Opposite "Adhunika")
Kolkata 700045
India
Tel: 91-33-24228645; mobile: 91-9831476944