Effect of porosity and loading height on the performance of household LPG gas stoves

Abstract

In the present work, the effect of porosity and loading height on the performance of the domestic gas burners, using LPG as fuel, is studied extensively through experimentation. Water Boiling Test (Version 4.2.3) as per the recommendations of International Organization for Standardisation International Workshop Agreement (ISO-IWA) is adopted to determine the thermal efficiency of the domestic gas stove. It is observed that, by increasing the number of holes in intermediate and innermost rows by about 96% and 73%, the pitch gets reduced by 58% and 65% respectively. Due to increased porosity, the thermal efficiency in hot and cold phase is increased by about 30% and in simmer phase the thermal efficiency is increased by about 26%. In addition to this, it is also observed that there exists an optimum height for keeping the container over the gas burner (loading height) up to which the thermal efficiency increases and beyond that, the thermal efficiency drops significantly. The optimum loading height for cold and hot phase is 14.1, and 14.6 mm respectively for the LPG cookstove used in present work (1–3 kW). The thermal efficiency at cold and hot phase, while running the gas stove with stand (11.25 mm) is reduced by about 18.5 and 16.5% respectively compared to the optimum loading height of 14.1 and 14.6 mm respectively.