Invention Coach:
Public Inventor(s):
Cledden Obeng-Poku Kwanin, Ivan Urdiales, Marie Cheynour, Gianluca
Previous PIs:
Morena Andres, Aditya Choksi, Christopher J Fang, Kaitlyn Wang, Stephanie A. Ponce, Concepcion C Appio-Riley, Sana A. Mohamed, Samuel Robedee
Main Link:
Motivation:
A Pot Design for Open-Fire Cooking
The EcoPot project team is designing a pot that specifically uses and conserves heat from open fires in order to support communities around the world who use fire to cook and heat water. The EcoPot aims to use fire-heating in the most efficient way possible, and it uses design principles ranging from modern heat-transfer fins to the pots of ancient peoples. Through these methods and their research, the team hopes to save time and energy for the one billion people who still gather firewood for basic cooking. This will also decrease deforestation and smoke pollution in these areas.
Story:
Development of the EcoPot Design
The team has designed a pot with a rounded base, inspired by the rounded pots of ancient peoples. In a three-and-a-half minute trial of the design, the spherical base heated water an estimated 12°C hotter than a flat base under open fire heating conditions.
They then added heat transfer fins to the EcoPot, inspired by the research of Joe Alexandersen and Ole Sigmund. A group of undergraduate students from Rice University tested this addition and found that the pot utilized 40% less fuel to heat up the same quantity of water when heat transfer fins were placed on the base of the pot.
Finally, the EcoPot team rounded the shape of the pot’s lid, which performed 5°C better than a similar pot with a flat lid.
Further Design and OpenFoam Testing
Currently, the team is performing computational testing of these design elements in OpenFoam in order to perfect the design for final deployment. They then aim to write a research paper that will promote further study in this area, which has been severely under researched.
Related Open-Source Projects
If interested in learning more about our other projects, check the following pages for updates and similar volunteer opportunities:
Status:
Skills Needed
The EcoPot team is currently looking for volunteers with the following skills or interests:
- CAD Designers/Drafters
- Computational Fluid Dynamics
- Thermodynamics/Heat-transfer
- HVAC principles
Other interested parties are welcomed. If interested in joining the project, please reach out to Robert L. Read, Volunteer Coordinator Miriam Castillo, or Volunteer Now.
Quarterly Goals
Current inventors hope to redesign the first version of the EcoPot developed by Rice University Students. The redesign will take into consideration applicable heat transfer characteristics studied and visualized via thermal analysis studies/profiles conducted in computational fluid dynamic software tools, such as OpenFOAM/Solidworks.
Collateral
Prior Rice University Students Utilized Concepts From:
“Revisiting the optimal shape of cooling fins: A one-dimensional analytical study using optimality conditions” by Joe Alexandersen and Ole Sigmund.
Photo Gallery
