HEAT- RETENTION COOKING AND NO -TRACKING PROPERTIES OF SOLAR OVEN WITH FIVE SIDES OF DOUBLE GLAZING

Solar oven with five sides of double glazing is a solar cooker of box type with multiple reflectors that receive the solar radiation from five sides and needs no tracking during the cooking period. Heat-retention cooking is also a salient feature of the device. This paper reports on the study of heat-retention and no-tracking properties of the said device. For heat retention cooking in conventional solar cookers the pot is removed from the oven and is covered for heat retention cooking. While in Solar oven with five sides of double glazing the oven as a whole is covered with an insulated cap meant for the purpose and the heat present in food, pot, cooking chamber and the double glazing is trapped in. As a result the food keeps on cooking slowly at low temperature for an extended period of time in the absence of solar radiation. To evaluate the heat-retention property in this test a load of 3 kg of water was heated up to 94.5 °C by solar radiation and the oven was insulated for the heat retention cooking. After 4.5 hours the food temperature reached at 65.5 °C. No-tracking property was achieved by extending the length of the reflectors towards both ends. As a result span of the reflected radiation increased and re-tracking was not required up till 80 minutes of cooking.