Turbo Stove Stage 3

Turbo Stove – Winter 2012 – Stage 3

During the third stage of our project, we decided to completely redesign the Burninator and then build our own version on the stove that would [hopefully] burn better. There were a few things that we decided to focus on after reviewing our observations of the experiments with the Burninator:

  • Creating an air-tight burn chamber
  • Concentrating all airflow through the fuel chamber and burn surface
  • Feeding the fuel in from one side only to avoid having too much fuel in the burn chamber

We were able to build this stove in just one lab period using a few supplies from Home Depot and some sheet metal. After the last lab, we tested the new stove and got some disappointing results. Although the air-tightness and the fuel feeder adjustment seemed to make a big difference in the quality of the burn with newspaper, we still could not get the rice husks to stay lit. Further observations of burning newspaper showed us what our problem was. The air that we hoped to funnel up through the fuel was actually being pulled around the fuel and out the smoke stack on top. Because the air was moving around the fuel and not through it, there was very little combustion happening in the intended burn zone.

Turbo_Stove_last_lab.jpg
This PowerPoint presentation contains our observations of the experiments with the Flamethrower:
Final Presentation_Mike.pptx