[Stoves] Major stove-test proposal

[Frank Shields]

Dear Paul, and Stovers, 

Thanks so much for this e-mail. The new Tool Box approach seems an
interesting concept and, whether it works or not, will at least get us out
of the stagnant rut we are in and will be a good learning process to better
understand all the variables we are dealing with. Not sure if I understand
the concept so will just give an outline on how I think it might work:

Without doing any cooking or using any biomass fuel we dial in the
following:

1) heat transfer based on thickness and material of the pot (look-up)
2) color of the pot bottom new and aged (look-up)
3) gap measurements (actual)
4) material type, color and thickness of stove body (look-up or test)
5) *volume of the fuel box to estimate energy (actual)
6) ** Standard artificial fire testing equipment (designed and built)
7) *** air flow at different points (actual)
8) temperature at different points (actual)

Suggestions:
* volume of the fuel box could be done using a modification of ASTM D 1553
sand cone method. I have used this in the field to determine earth dam
compaction and in the lab to determine density of odd shaped clods of soil.
Simply block all holes and pour in calibrated dry #20 quartz sand (like a
three minute egg timer) to determine volume. 
** Thinking we could have a collection of 'Standard" natural gas or propane
fueled fires using fake logs like used in fireplaces. They could be designed
to simulate a typical fire in specific class of stoves and produce the
energy typical of a fire of those dimensions.   
*** As the gas enters the fake sticks stove we could have in place an
atomizer like used in the old Atomic Absorption (AA) instruments where we
could aspirate in dilute mercury vapors directly into the flame and, using
another AA determine 'real time' Hg concentrations at different points of
the Gas Flow System to determine mixing ratios of primary and secondary air
with the combustion gases. 

So we eliminate variables in cooking and biomass fuel when testing the
stove. We concentrate on getting the heat where it needs to be. We can test
the fuel separately for properties for combustion and test cooking process
on site. 

Something like that.....

Regards

Frank


Frank Shields
Control Laboratories, Inc.
42 Hangar Way
Watsonville, CA  95076
(831) 724-5422 tel
(831) 724-3188 fax
www.biocharlab.com









  


-----Original Message-----
From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of
Paul Anderson
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2013 4:42 PM
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves; biochar at yahoogroups.com; Hugh
McLaughlin; Bob Fairchild; Noeli Anderson; Doc Anderson; Ranyee Chiang
Subject: [Stoves] Major stove-test proposal

Dear All,

Here at the GACC Forum, a truly major proposal about adjustments of 
stove-testing method has been made.   It is just beginning to reach 
those who should be involved.   Feel free to forward the attached 
document to others.   And I understand that some additional proposals 
are being formulated, but I have no details on them.

I will send further comments eventually, but you can start 
discussions.   The conference is very productive.  Including some truly 
meaningful TLUD progress!!!

Paul

-- 
Paul S. Anderson, PhD  aka "Dr TLUD"
Email:  psanders at ilstu.edu   Skype: paultlud  Phone: +1-309-452-7072
Website:  www.drtlud.com