Design, construction and experimental investigation of parabolic solar cooker performance

Considering the abundance and freeness of solar energy in the country and gas supply problems, solar oven is considered a very suitable alternative for cooking food. In this paper, a parabolic solar cooker was designed, built and tested. The equipment used in the construction includes iron parabolic dish, mirrors to reflect light on the focal point, cans and iron belts to make the jaw and support base. Among the innovations of the present device, we can mention the use of cheap materials, the ability to upgrade and repair, simple use and educational use, and the ability to change the angle in all three dimensions of spatial coordinates. To ensure the accuracy of the results, the repeatability chart is presented and the uncertainty analysis is calculated for all parameters. By comparing the aluminum container and the copper container, the result is that the temperature of the water in the copper container reaches 86 degrees and in the aluminum container reaches 76 degrees Celsius in 30 minutes. In another experiment, a smoked (black) aluminum container was checked, and according to the experiment, water in the smoked container boils in 25 minutes. According to the thermodynamic analysis that was done to calculate the energy efficiency in all experiments, the medium copper pot with a closed lid with 18.52% efficiency and a small copper container with a closed lid with 17% efficiency, are ranked first and second respectively.