Design and construction of a continuous flow water boiler chamber for an integrated solar-electricity powered boiler.

Abstract

Most of Uganda's households depends so much on-water heating and in an attempt to improve the energy saving the developing technology has 10 meet the needs of the users, A Solar Water Heating system is an enormous form of renewable energy heating system which uses sunshine as the source of fuel. In addition, the integration of solar water heaters and electrical heating system is more advantageous form of water heating and is generally environmentally friendly. The available water boilers operate on batch processing and hence cannot meet the continuous demand of boiled water Therefore, the objective of the study was to design, develop and test solar-electricity powered continuous flow water boiler chamber majorly for households and small scale restaurants which would help in continuous provision of boiled water and further save energy as a result of load sharing. The design of the various equipment’s parts was carried out by analysing the effects of heat On them. This led to the selection of proper materials to withstand the heat and contain heat within to avoid burns to the users. Engineering drawings of the various components were drawn before the various components were constructed. Then prototype assembly was done last according to the engineering drawings. A fully functional prototype resulted after all the above operations. In addition, testing of the prototype was carried out and the results revealed that higher sun intensity combined with low -flow rates led to higher temperature output compared to low sun intensity. Boiling water at lower flow rate attained temperatures between 700C -75 0C and doubling the flow rate led to a reduction of outlet water temperature from the boiling chamber. Furthermore, this study also showed that flow rate is an important factor to consider in boiling water using a continuous flow Water boiling system.