You Can Innovate Now
Let me guide you on how Tharaka Invention Academy Helps Turn Problems Into Inventions.
Hello, my name is Prof. Singer and I want to show you, very simply, how Tharaka Invention Academy is designed to work.
Let me use a real design challenge as an example.
I have worked with solar cooking for many years. Solar cookers can be wonderfully simple. You put the cooker outside, collect free energy from the sun, and cook food without smoke from burning wood, charcoal, or gas.
This solar powered oven was designed using TIC’s online innovation resources. It can be manufactured locally by semi-skilled craftspeople and easily have a useful working life of more than three decades. Its use will massively reduce dependence on electricity, firewood, charcoal, or imported fuels.
Inside the insulated cooking chamber, the temperatures would likely be somewhat below the heavy plate temperature.
For a 2–3 m² collector in strong sunshine, theoretical chamber-air temperatures might be:
Construction Empty chamber Chamber while cooking
Double glazing, ordinary black absorber 110–145°C 80–110°C
Double glazing, selective absorber 140–180°C 100–145°C
High-performance or evacuated collector 170–220°C 130–190°C
These are engineering estimates, not guaranteed results. A wet pot of beans or stew would hold the chamber near the lower end because evaporation absorbs substantial energy. Bread, roasting or relatively dry food could permit higher chamber temperatures. Increasing absorber area raises the available heat, but the ultimate temperature remains governed by collector losses and chamber insulation.
A realistic target for the affordable version would be a sustained 100–130°C inside the occupied chamber. That would support boiling, simmering, baking and slow roasting. Consistently reaching 150–180°C while food is present would probably require a selective absorber, exceptionally good insulation and very low thermal resistance between the heat-pipe condensers and cooking plate.
We have published other informative posts on Invention School’s website which may interest you. To view our entire catalog of over 1000 posts go to inventionschool.tech/category/blog/ or use our handy search tool to find topics of interest to you.
Mechanical/Solar Engineer, Prof. Oku Singer
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