Performance Evaluation of Improved Cook Stoves

Approximately 70-80% of the total energy used in villages is consumed for domestic cooking and 80-90% of the domestic energy needs are met through firewood, cow dung and agricultural crop wastes. The bio fuels are being burned in low efficiency traditional cook stoves. The environment within the house is polluted by the smoke emitted from the traditional cook stoves causing ill effect on health of women and children. To alleviate this problem, a number of double pot improved cook stoves (ICSs) have been developed for rural people. Experiments were conducted on different models of cook stoves viz. traditional cook stove, Sukhad, Udairaj and improved Udairaj models to find the thermal efficiency, power rating and specific fuel consumption by conducting water boiling test. Udairaj cook stove was found to have the highest thermal efficiency of 23.4%, whereas traditional cook stove was found to have lowest thermal efficiency of 15.4% among the cook stoves tested. Uadairaj and improved Udairaj cook stoves were found to have similar power rating and lowest specific fuel consumption in the range of 0.811 kw to 0.849 kw and 1.232 kg/kwh to 1.225 kg/kwh respectively whereas traditional cook stove was found to have lowest power rating of 0.559 kw and highest specific fuel consumption of 1.799 kg/kwh.