Hailey+L

Hailey Lape

Human beings have used the sun as a source of energy for thousands of years. The use of solar energy can be applied to cook food. There are three types of solar cookers, heat trap box cookers, parabolic cookers, and panel cookers. Thousands of variations of these types of cookers have been created. Box cookers are the most widely used worldwide. They cook at moderate to high temperatures and can accommodate multiple pots. Parabolic cookers also known as curved concentration cookers reach high temperatures quickly but require frequent adjustments and safety supervision. Panel cookers combine element of both the box cooker and the parabolic cooker. They are simple and inexpensive to produce. The “cool kit” is one of the most used solar cookers. Solar cooking is possible in many areas of the world. It is most practical in areas that are dry and sunny for at least six months of the year and lye between the equator and 40 degrees latitude. The countries that are most equipped for solar cooking are India, China, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda, Sudan, Afghanistan, Tanzania, South Africa, Niger, Somalia, Brazil, Kenya, Nepal, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. Solar energy has been of use to the human kind for many years. The ancient Greeks, Romans, and Chinese used solar energy in non cooking ways. A French Swiss physicist, Horace de Saussure created the first solar cooker in 1767. He built miniature greenhouses out of five layers of glass boxes turned upside down on top of a lack table. With this cooker he was able to cook fruit. Later DuCarlu added mirrors to the cooker and was able to cook meet it one hour. In the 1870’s Augustin Mouchot combined the box cooker and the burning mirror concepts and was able to create a solar oven, solar still, solar pump, and ultimately the first steam engine. Solar energy didn’t have much presence in the US until the 1970’s but there were limited strives in this field before that time. In 1891 Clarence Kemp the “father of solar energy in the USA” patented a solar water heater. This heater was used in 30% of the household in Pasadena in 1897. The industry later declined during WWI when copper was heavily rationed. In the 1930’s France sent solar cookers to its colonies in Africa. In 1945 Sri M. K. Ghosh designed the first solar box cooker to be commercially produced. In the 1950’s solar ovens and reflectors were produced but the industry did not thrive due to lower cost alternatives. During this time recreational engineers kept the solar industry going. Then in the 1970’s when the energy crisis started the UN put attention on solar power. Solar cells went from $100 a watt to $20 a watt. Solar energy was applied to railroads, light houses, offshore oil rigs, buoys, and remote homes. Since this time the global solar industry has grown at about 25% a year. Since solar power is such an important industry for our planet I have decided to test the three main types of solar ovens for efficiency. These are the box cooker, the parabolic cooker, and the panel cooker. In addition to these three I will also be testing the tire cooker which could be classified as a box cooker as well. In order to make this experiment successful I decided to use two 100 watt reflective light bulbs to take the place of the sun. I will fill a black pot with water and record their temperatures every hour for a total of three hours. I plan on constructing all of these cookers myself. Some of them are based off of other people’s plans and some are my own original concepts. The materials needed to construct these vary by the cooker. However the constants for these cookers remain the same. All four cookers will have two 100 watt reflective light bulbs, an 8 quart black pot, a constant room temperature, and all will be measured using the same thermometer. The tire cooker is a form of a box cooker. It is the easiest to construct, for this particular cooker I will only need a tire tube, a board painted black, and a sheet of glass. For this to work I will place the pot in the tube and place the glass over top. This is so the light will enter and absorb into the black pot but will not be able to escape. The panel cooker is a simple and low cost solar cooker. I constructed my solar cooker out of a windshield reflector. Using Velcro I created a funnel like shape from the reflector. Then I placed the funnel over a bucket and placed a rack in the funnel to support the pot. This concept works because the light is reflecting off of the funnel and is absorbed into the black pot. The parabolic cooker is constructed out of card board. In order to correctly construct this cooker you must precisely measure a triangle like shape onto the cardboard to be cut out. Then these panels are connected and covered in aluminum foil. The cooker should be a half sphere shape. This concept works in the manner that all the light will be reflected onto the black pot. It is my hope to find the solution to which of these cookers is the most efficient so that this information can add to the solar power industry.

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__Materials__ 3600 ml aluminum pot non toxic when dry spray paint 2, 100 watt halogen light bulbs 21.59 cm reflector shade (8.5 in) reynolds oven bags digital meat thermometer - __parabolic cooker__ 20.32x30.48 cm measuring square (8x12in) ruler tape measure carpet cutting knife cardboard aluminum foil glue duct tape aluminum tape hole puncher

-__panel cooker__ standard size sun shade stick on velcro 34x24 cm cookie rack 5 gallon bucket scissors

-__tire tube cooker__ tire tube wood board sheet of plexi-glass black paint

-__box cooker__ 2 different sized cardboard boxes aluminum foil aluminum tape scissors glue black paper

__Procedure__ -__parabolic cooker__ 1.use the tape measure and measuring square to trace 12, 24x61 cm rectangles onto the cardboard 2.using a carpet knife carefully cut out the rectangles 3. trace the panel shape onto the cardboard rectangles 4. use a carpet knife and cut this out 5. fold each panel along the dotted lines that were sketched 6.punch holes along the bottom of the panels 7. evenly put glue onto each panel 8. using a paint brush spread the glue evenly over the panel 9. roll the aluminum foil over the gluey side of the panel 10. using the carpet knife cut the aluminum foil along the edges of the panel 11. fold any extra aluminum foil over the sides of the panel. 12.place the panels in a circle formation 13.tape the panels along their longest side with duck tape on the back of the panels 14.glue aluminum foil to the back of the panels once they are taped to fill the gaps 15. pull twine through the punched holes to connect the panels at the center of the circle formation 16. cut out a medium sized circle from the cardboard 17. glue on some aluminum foil to it 18. using aluminum tape, place the circle and the base of the oven where there is a hole 19. reinforce the cooker with aluminum tape, making sure the oen ia in a half sphere like shape 20. place the cooker in front of the light source on its edge. 21. put 1500 ml of water in the pot 22. put 1/3 cup white rice into the pot 23. take the start temp of the water with the digital meat thermometer 24. place pot inside oven bad a securely tie it shut 25. place pot inside the cooker 26. once an hour for a series of three hours check the temp 27. repeat this for a total of ten trials

-__panel cooker__ 1. lay the sunshade out in front of you 2. cut 4, 4.5 cm velcro strips 3. cut 2, 3cm velcro strips 4. stick the velcro strips on the left of the top of the sunshade 12 cm apart. 5. in the spot for the rearview mirror place velcro strips 4.5 cm apart 6. fold the sunshade in half so the velcro strips allign, this should create a funnel shape 7.place the funnel inside the 5 gallon bucket 8. place the cookie rack over the funnel in the bucket 9.place the cooker in front of the lights 10.fill the pot with 1500 ml of water 11. put 1/3 cup of white rice into the pottake the start temp of the water with the digital meat thermometer 12. place pot inside oven bad a securely tie it shut 13. place pot inside the cooker 14. once an hour for a series of three hours check the temp 15. repeat this for a total of ten trials

-__tire tube cooker__ 1.paint a wood board black 2. place a black tire tube on the board 3. fill the pot with 1500 ml of water 4. put 1/3 cup of white rice into the pot 5.take the start temp of the water with the digital meat thermometer 6.. place pot inside oven bad a securely tie it shut 7.. place pot inside the tire 8. place sheet of plexi glass over tire 9. once an hour for a series of three hours check the temp 10. repeat this for a total of ten trials

- __box cooker__ 1. you need two different sized boxes, place the smaller box inside the larger 2. line both boxes with aluminum foil 3. make sure the flaps of the inner box go passed the outer box 4, paint the bottom of the inner box black5. place the pot inside the box 5.fill the pot with 1500 ml of water 6. put 1/3 cup of white rice into the pottake the start temp of the water with the digital meat thermometer 7. place pot inside oven bad a securely tie it shut 8. place pot inside the cooker 9. using aluminum tape reinforce the tabs of the outer box to reflect the light into the box 10. once an hour for a series of three hours check the temp 11. repeat this for a total of ten trials