Heat transfer characterization with alternative heating element layout in electric ‘Injera’ baking technology

Abstract

The quantitative understanding of the heat transfer mechanism of injera baking technology is critical to evaluate energy consumption, cooking time, and thermal loss of the technology. However, the impact of the heating element layout on the heat transfer process has not been studied. Here, this paper studies four heating element layout arrangements consisting of a fixed power input with a varying power density as a function of layout design to investigate wiring layout impact on product performance. The conduction heat transfer of each heating element layout modelled using transient finite element simulation. Results indicate that higher power density bear a strong, positive correlation with startup time, which showed a 13% better performance when compared with the benchmark. The temperature distribution, however, incurs a 32% higher deviation. Whereas the model with the least favourable startup time shows a threefold higher performance than the benchmark. The results show wiring layout has influence over the key performance parameter of the technology.