[Stoves] TLUD history...... was.Re: Accidental TLUD technique discovery

Crispin Pemberton-Pigott crispinpigott at outlook.com
Tue Nov 15 23:17:27 CST 2016


Dear Paul

Thanks for keeping an eye on core elements.

I would like to highlight an existing technology (method?) because it is
going to be missed as a form of gasification.

This is too limiting in its interpretation:

" ...has its ignition at the top BUT THE FIRE FOR GASIFICATION DOES NOT STAY
AT THE TOP, but has the MPF (Migratory Pyrolytic Front) in action decending
downward until it reaches the bottom of the fuel pile."

Because:
The fire can be developing radially from a central point into a fuel pile,
which is the Boy Scout method.
The fire can be developing 'on an angle' (tilted) into a fuel pile in one
direction only (sort of like a crossdraft fire). 
The MPF can be in a true crossdraft configuration as in the KG4 and MK5
combustors now being built in Bishkek, with constant shifting of the fuel so
the MPF remains approximately in the same location as the fuel passes by.
The fire can be developing from the surface of a cone of fire into the
centre of a round conical pile. 

This last example is used in Russia (invented in Russia, anyway) is for
burning fuel particles that are pumped from below into the centre of a
conical pile sitting on a round plate. This is definitely a TLUD without
having a flat MPF - the MPF is cone-shaped at all times. The fuel is pumped
in the centre and the ash falls off the edge of the round plate. In the
example I looked at the plate rotated, power by a motor, because it was
huge. 320 kW as I recall.  This rotation somehow balances the shape of the
pile and the rate of the ash falling off. It could of course be done at any
scale.

It could also be done for any shape. One could push fuel into the bottom of
a TLUD gasifier and remove the ash or char at the top so the MPF was
horizontal at all times. But it is not the only way to do it. That is my
point. People are already using other profiles of the MPF. I think it is a
good idea to include these systems in your lexicon.

Regards
Crispin


-----Original Message-----
From: Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of
Paul Anderson
Sent: 16-Nov-16 11:50
To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Subject: [Stoves] TLUD history...... was.Re: Accidental TLUD technique
discovery

Neil and Crispin and all,

What Crispin described and Neil found as the "upside down (pyramid)" at the
REI website writings

https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/campfire-basics.html

does indeed relate to Paal Wendelbo's youthful experiences in Norway in the
early 1940s.  How far back is the origin of that information?  Did 
the ancient Vikings make fires that way?   And when is it first 
described in early Boy Scout writings?

Wendlebo is TLUD "Pyroneer" NOT because he made campfires like the older 
Norweigan men (or like early boy scouts or even earlier people.)   No.   
Wendelbo is a TLUD Pyroneer because he spent years of his spare time in
Africa in the 1980s-90s accomplishing the task of "containerizeing" the 
top lit fire, in metal materials in his case.   He made the top-lit fire 
in a way that it can be picked up and moved around.   He made it so that 
the heat (secondary combustion) was at a specific location above which the
pot could be supported.

Top lit campfires and top lit stoves are sufficiently distinct so that
Wendelbo is the only person known to have accomplished the containment
inside a combustion chamber intended for cooking.  We are always open for
documented evidence that someone else did the same thing.

In contrast, Tom Reed (the other recognized originator of what are now TLUD
gasifier cookstoves) arrived at similar processes but started from a
theoretical perspective.  He turned upside-down the components of down draft
(DD) gasification, and creating a cooking device, which he called IDD
(Inverted DownDraft.  We now realize that the DD has its ignition and
continual fire at the bottom of the fuel pile, whereas the IDD (or
TLUD) has its ignition at the top BUT THE FIRE FOR GASIFICATION DOES NOT
STAY AT THE TOP, but has the MPF (Migratory Pyrolytic Front) in action
decending downward until it reaches the bottom of the fuel pile.

Just think, that was only 30 years ago that those two men "containerized" or
confined the "upside-down" fire and originated TLUD 
stoves.    [For more about those 30 years, please read the "Origins and 
History...... document at the   drtlud.com  website.]

Paul





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