[Stoves] Fuel qualities as the limiting factor, and getting rid of WBT (Was: Frank on helium surrogate)

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Frank

>So when you get through interviewing then its back to the lab?

Yes. Or the workbench. When developing a stove the testing is ‎quite different from the final assessments. I would test a design by pushing the limits on fuel flexibility and moisture etc. The heat transfer efficiency is important to know, as well as the combustion efficiency and the conditions when the CO is extremely low.

>Hasn’t this interviewing been done before  - many times - at great expense?

Well, no not really. If you read a good description of a cooking event there ‎are several technical things missing, usually, but the most important is the actual cooking power at various times when they say, 'this is low power' 'this is high power', this is baking power and so on. There is a simple but very accurate test for this which we trained the soc Sci staff to preform in the field.

>Does it differ from one location to another?

The observations, definitely. The cooking power, yes especially what is considered an acceptable 'high power'. Remember that high power is not firepower in the kW sense but the heat gained by a pot per Sq cm. Based on the pot, that translates into a kW figure.

Consider: when a small pot is on the stove with a small amount of water in it, people have an expectation that it will take a certain amount of time to heat up. That expectation is cultural. ‎It may vary with the fuel or the season. It is almost impossible to guess what a stove will need to do from the cooking of a meal only.

What Cecil and I worked out was how to do such an investigation generically. It is not a survey, it is not an observation only. It is an intervention and discussion and takes time. A dozen good, deep interviews is worth more than a survey of 1500 users.
Cecil is about to 'do it again' ‎in a new country and we can learn from the methodology. I hope it is fully documented by the end of the year.

Regards
Crispin in Serpong eating nasi goreng
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