THERMAL PERFORMANCE OF A GLASS BALL SOLAR COOKER

Document Type : Research articles.

Author

Soils and Water Dept., Fac. of Agric., Fayoum University.

Abstract

A glass ball solar cooker (GBSC) with and without reflector
dish was employed to utilize the energy in cooking process. Some
variables were investigated to evaluate the GBSC performance, (solar
intensity, ambient air temperature, wind speed and relative humidity).
The performance was characterized by water temperature within the
cooker vessel, with and without reflector dish. Thermal analysis was
applied in GBSC with reflector dish to study the solar radiation
behavior within GBSC. A statistical model, based on step-wise
regression analysis revealed significant relationships between these
variables at the level of 0.001 significance, except relative humidity
was not significant. Results showed that, water (1 kg) in vessel cooker
needs 90 minute to boil at 100
oC, while 0.5 kg of rice needs 165
minute to cook, with the reflector dish. The maximum efficiency of
GBSC was about 23.6%.


Keywords