STUDIES ON A HOT BOX SOLAR COOKER WITH TRANSPARENT INSULATION MATERIALS

A hot box solar cooker was tested in an indoor solar simulator with co vers consisting of 40 and 100 mm thick Transparent Insulation Material (TIM). The stagnation temperature with the 40 mm TIM was found to be 158-degrees-C, compared with 117-degrees-C without the TIM. The corres ponding ratios of U/eta(o) were 7.13 and 10.3 W/m2 K, respectively. Th e efficiency of the cooker is defined as the fraction of the incident energy retained within the cooking utensils at the time of first reach ing 100-degrees-C to incident radiation. Using the 40 mm TIM this rose from 15.7 to 30.47% for test conditions representing severe cold at J odhpur, India. Little additional benefit was found in using a 100 mm T IM instead of a 40 mm TIM in the hot box solar cooker. A variety of fo ods common in India were successfully cooked in the hot box using the 40 mm TIM.