Steady-state behavior of a biomass plancha-type cookstove: Experimental and 3D numerical study

Improvements to biomass cookstoves offer an opportunity to reduce pollutant exposure and improve the quality of life in rural areas. In this work, a detailed analysis for the understanding of the main transport phenomena in biomass plancha-type cookstove is presented. It is based on a novel experimental methodology and steady-state 3D numerical simulations. The main transport phenomena present during the operation of a plancha-type biomass cookstove are numerically modeled by means of the commercial software ANSYS Fluent. The phenomena of fluid dynamics, heat transfer, combustion, and species transport are studied in the volume of gas (fluid) inside the cookstove and the volume of the comal or cooking surface (solid). Additionally, an experimental setup has been implemented to obtain thermographic images of the comal surface as well as velocity and emissions concentrations in the chimney. A good quantitative and qualitative comparison for the experimental and numerical results is reported.