Abstract

The fact that many globally depend on wood for their heating needs cannot be denied. There is therefore need of finding better ways of burning this wood when harvested. In this work, a wood stove was designed, constructed and tested without a skirt and with a detachable skirt of height 120 mm (same height as the pot used for the experiment) to ascertain the influence of the skirt on the stove in terms of thermal performance in a water boiling test. Thermal efficiency and specific fuel consumption were evaluated. It was found that the stove tested without a skirt gave an average thermal efficiency of 31.33 % and an average specific fuel consumption of 0.139 kg/l. When tested with a skirt, however, the stove gave an improved average thermal efficiency of 38.645 % and an average specific fuel consumption of 0.092 kg/l. This signifies an improvement in thermal performance by the use of skirt on the stove.

Key words: detachable-skirt; thermal performance; improvement.