Stove Part V: testing!

Finally, we reached the last stage of the stove project: testing!

Our task was to try and boil water using charcoal. Each team used 1000ml of water and 200g of charcoal. We used a fire-starter to get the charcoal burning.

Here's a picture of the setup:

As the fire burned along, we noticed that the chimney was working, however its placement was not ideal. There is a reason chimneys always direct the air UP! It is not good to have a chimney horizontal to where your stove is. That aspect is definitely something we would change if we could.

Here is a picture of the stove from the other side:

We were pretty happy with how sturdy the stove remained with the added weight of the pot. Although the heating surface sank in a bit, it didn't topple over or really affect the structure of the stove at all. The doors worked well, except for the minor problem of them blowing shut with wind. We would definitely improve upon that design if possible.

In frequent intervals we checked the temperature of the water to see how fast and how high the water would heat. The water started out at 24˚C, and was put on the stove at 2:07pm. We ended the experiment at 3:08pm with a water temperature of 53˚C.

Below see a graph of the water temperature over time:

I'm pretty happy with this curve. I think we could have gotten the water temperature higher with some changes, such as making the design allow for the heat to be closer to the pot. This would have made the water heat up much faster, and maybe even make it boil.

Now that I am much more familiar with working with aluminum and actually building something with hinges and rivets, I think I could make a much cleaner stove that functions better than the one we completed. All in all, though, I am happy that our stove successfully heated water and didn't collapse under the weight of the pot. In regards to our goal of improving air flow, I think we did that quite well. The doors were a success, and the chimney, though it could have been better, served its function.

Thanks to Kelsey and Alex for all their hard work!

~FIONA