According to the World Heath Organization more than three billion people depend on biomass fuels (wood, dung, or agricultural residues) primarily for cooking. The practice of cooking with biomass has decimated many ecosystems and requires an enormous amount of human effort to gather. In addition, there is considerable evidence that exposure to biomass smoke increases the risk of common and serious diseases in both children and adults. According to the WHO studies, indoor smoke from solid fuels causes an estimated 1.6 million deaths annually.

To minimize these harmful effects associated with cooking more efficient cook stoves have been proposed. These new stoves are significantly more biomass fuel efficient and thus reduce deforestation rates. These enhanced stoves also reduce indoor air pollution, thereby reducing deaths and illnesses due to biomass cooking.

RIT is working with an NGO partner in Haiti, H.O.P.E., and initially funded by an EPA Energy Research Grant to develop an enhanced stove. The goal of this project is to build on the work done by project P10461 to develop an improved cook stove for vendors and institutional users. The improved cook stove should substantially reduce (by more than 50%) the emissions and fuel needed for cooking compared to the traditional stoves currently used in Haiti. The first generation stove developed by team P10461 was designed to use force draft to improve combustion and heat transfer to the pot. The stove design also made use of recycled material, attempted to reduce thermal losses by the use of radiant barriers, and increase heat transfer to pot by the use of a skirt. A separate team (P11451) will develop stove measurement and characterization methods and reduce them to practice. The mission of this project team is to design a basic stove with a combustion assisting fan. They should ignore for now how the fan is powered, which is the responsibility of team P11462. The team needs to define the design space of combustion efficiency as a function of fan characteristics and stove size, dimensions, burner height, and fuel placement. Project deliverables would be a basic stove design including fan selection. At least two stoves should be built for field testing in Haiti by H.O.P.E

Team 11461 PRP.

Traditional Cook Stove.

11461 Stove Assembly.

Stove Teams.

Project Name

Cook Stove Enhancements

Project Number

P11461

Project Family

P11400 - Sustainable Technologies for the Third World

Track

Sustainable Technologies

Start Term

2010-2

End Term

2010-3

Faculty Guide

Ed Hanzlik

Faculty Consultant

Dr. Rob Stevens

Primary Customer

Dr. Stevens, The Haitian People

Mission Statement

Staffing Requirements

Intellectual Property Considerations

Preliminary Work Breakdown Structure

Team Values and Norms

Identify Customer Needs

Establish Target Specifications

Generate Product Concepts

Select Product Concept(s)

Test Product Concept(s)

Set Final Specifications

Video:"Making Efficient Stoves in Les Anglais, Haiti"

System Level Design Review Documents (SD I)

Detailed Design Review Documents (SD I)

Managerial Design Review Presentation (SD I)

Testing

Finalized Design

Photo Gallery

Technical Conference Publication (SD II)

Poster Publication (SD II)

Project Review Presentation (SD II)

Week 11 Final Review (SD II)

Degrading Circumstances for Combustion Chamber Research

Jordan Hunter

Brian Knight

Mike Lagos

Rob Reid

Alex Seidel

jth2664@rit.edu

btk3898@rit.edu

michaljl@gmail.com

rmr1405@rit.edu

ajs4490@rit.edu