Please follow Links: (1) http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/gree n-science/solar-cooking1.htm (2) http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/boiling-pointwater-d_926.html (3) http://auto.howstuffworks.com/motorcycle1.htm (4) http://auto.howstuffworks.com/autoparts/towing/towing-capacity/information/fpte5.htm (5) http://home.howstuffworks.com/rice-cooker3.htm (6) http://www.gh-ia.com/induction_heating.html (7) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Lay man’s calculations: A parabolic cooker can get even hotter, up to 400 degrees F (204 degrees C), which is hot enough to fry food or bake bread. As per Engineering Toolbox.com – PRESSURE PSI 250 BAR 17 BOILING POINT Deg F deg C 401 205 Normally, (as per information to the best of my knowledge from my Engg friends) in the two wheeler Piston head the energy generated is 40 Bar. This is used to move the vehicle forward. Vehicle Weight + riders’ weight + friction on road + traffic jam + speed breakers + resistance from wind in speed – Where as in our project, the energy required to rotate the armature in the Electrical Generator is comparatively less. So we can expect that the energy generated with the vapor input can generate electricity. Capacity The size of the combustion chamber in a motorcycle engine is directly related to its power output. The upper limit is about 1500 cubic centimeters (cc), while the lower limit is about 50 cc. The latter engines are usually found on small motorcycles (mopeds) that offer 100-miles-to-the-gallon fuel economy but only reach top speeds of 30 to 35 miles per hour. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ STEAM WITH SOLAR ENERGY When water is heated to the point of vaporizing, the vaporized water takes up more space. The liquid contents will vaporize and eventually expand to the point where the can will explode to release the pressure inside. When this pressure is used to perform a particular task -- like turning a turbine or causing a kettle to whistle -- steam technology is harnessing steam power. The methods of heating, containing, channeling and using steam have changed, but the basic principle remains the same. Other inventors soon set out to perfect a method by which a steam engine could create the rotary motion necessary to produce electricity. They soon discovered that there was a limit to the number of revolutions per minute a steam-driven piston could provide. But the solution to this problem was to be found, ironically enough, in the very technology Hero proposed in A.D. 75: the steam turbine. Cooking With Light Using stoves and ovens, we can cook foods like meat, vegetables, beans, rice, bread and fruit in just about any way. We can bake, stew, steam, fry and braise. Using a solar cooker, we can do the same things, but by using sunlight instead of gas or electricity. Sunlight isn't hot in and of itself. It's just radiation, or light waves -- basically energy generated by fluctuating electric and magnetic fields. It feels warm on your skin, but that's because of what happens when those light waves hit the molecules in your skin. This interaction is similar to the concept that makes one form of solar cooker, the box cooker, generate high temperatures from sunlight. At its simplest, the sunlight-to-heat conversion occurs when photons (particles of light) moving around within light waves interact with molecules moving around in a substance. The electromagnetic rays emitted by the sun have a lot of energy in them. When they strike matter, whether solid or liquid, all of this energy causes the molecules in that matter to vibrate. They get excited and start jumping around. This activity generates heat. Solar cookers use a couple of different methods to harness this heat. The box cooker is a simple type of solar cooker. At maybe 3 to 5 feet (1 to 1.5 meters) across, it's essentially a sun-powered oven -- an enclosed box that heats up and seals in that heat. At its most basic, the box cooker consists of an open-topped box that's black on the inside, and a piece of glass or transparent plastic that sits on top. It often also has several reflectors (flat, metallic or mirrored surfaces) positioned outside the box to collect and direct additional sunlight onto the glass. To cook, you leave this box in the sun with a pot of food inside, the pot sitting on top of the black bottom of the box. When sunlight enters the box through the glass top, the light waves strike the bottom, making it scorching hot. Dark colors are better at absorbing heat, that's why the inside is black. The molecules that make up the box get excited and generate more heat. The box traps the heat, and the oven gets hotter and hotter. The effect is the same as what goes on in a standard oven: The food cooks. Box cookers can reach up to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C) [source: SHEI]. That's hot enough to safely cook meat. HSW 2009 A parabolic cooker can get even hotter, up to 400 degrees F (204 degrees C), which is hot enough to fry food or bake bread. This slightly more complicated design uses curved, reflective surfaces to focus lots of sunlight into a small area. It works a lot like a stove, and it's big, sometimes up to several feet across. A pot of food sits on an arm that holds it in the center of the curved reflectors, suspended slightly above the bottom point of the oven, where all the light is concentrated. This small point gets so hot -- and the molecules vibrate so much -- that the heat waves move upward in a steady stream to strike the bottom of the pot. Both parabolic and box cookers are quite large, making them difficult to carry around. And box cookers are heavy because of the glass. A panel cooker, which uses parabolic reflectors positioned above a box-type oven, tends to be smaller and lighter. The cooking pot goes in a plastic bag while it cooks, which acts as a heat trap (like the transparent top on a box cooker). People sometimes use these types of cookers in camping. Camping is something of a side job for solar cookers, though. The more central applications have to do poverty, hunger and disease. How can cooking with sunlight help? SOLAR ENERGY Solar Energy, the energy generated by the sun. This energy is in the form of electromagnetic radiation and travels to the earth in waves of various lengths. Some of the radiation becomes evident as heat, some as visible light. All life on earth depends ultimately on the sun's radiation. It warms the earth and provides the energy that green plants use to make their food. (Without plants, there would be no animals, since all animals must feed on plants or on plant-eating organisms.) Since ancient times attempts have been made—with varying success—to put the energy from the sun to practical use. In the third century B.C., the Greek mathematician and physicist Archimedes is said to have used the sun's rays reflected from mirrors to set fire to an invading Roman fleet. In the 19th century, John Ericsson, designer of the ironclad warship Monitor, built an engine that was powered by the sun's energy. Solar Heat Solar heat supplies energy for a variety of uses. The preservation of fruits, vegetables, meat, and fish by sun drying has been practiced for centuries. Some industrial products are also dried by the heat of the sun. In some warm, arid regions, the heat of the sun is used to evaporate seawater or brines to recover salt and other minerals. Water for domestic use can be heated by solar energy by the use of roof-mounted devices consisting of heat collectors through which water pipes pass. As the water is heated it flows into storage tanks. Heat collectors can also be used to heat homes and other buildings. The sun's heat is transferred to a fluid—usually water or air—which then heats the interior of the building. For heating at night and on cloudy days, some form of heat storage is necessary. A common storage system consists of an insulated tank to hold solar-heated water. In many regions, additional heat from a conventional heating system is required for extended cloudy or cold periods. Industrial installations that use large arrays of mirrors to produce intense solar heating have been developed in a number of countries. A large solar furnace at Odeillo, in the French Pyrenees, uses an array of thousands of movable mirrors to direct sunlight on a parabolic mirror. This mirror focuses the sunlight on an oven, yielding temperatures of more than 6,000° F. (3,300° C.). The furnace is used to study the effects of high temperatures on certain substances and for various industrial processes. In the southwestern United States, a few experimental installations have been built that use a large array of computercontrolled mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a boiler atop a high tower. Steam produced in the boiler powers a turbine that generates electricity. Photovoltaic, or Solar, Cells Photovoltaic cells convert sunlight directly into electricity. The cells are made of a semiconductor material, usually silicon. A solar battery consists of an array of solar cells connected together to generate electric power. Solar batteries are the source of power on most artificial satellites. Solar batteries are used in remote locations as a source of power for navigational buoys, irrigation pumps, and other equipment. Small solar batteries are used in some calculators and wrist watches. To a very limited extent solar batteries have been used to supply electric power to businesses and residences. However, photovoltaic cells are relatively costly to manufacture and are thus not practical for generating large amounts of electricity commercially. Research in the use of photovoltaic cells for solar energy is directed toward finding ways of increasing the efficiency of the cells and of reducing their cost. Boiling point 440F: PeanutOil† : Sunflower Oil† ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Induction Heaters: Induction heating, used for many applications beyond rice cookers, is achieved when this current passes through metal coils, typically made of copper. The movement of the current through these coils creates a magnetic field. It is into this magnetic field that the rice cooker's pan is inserted. The magnetic field produces an electrical current inside the cooking pan, and this generates heat. Heat can also be produced from this process if the rice cooker's pan is made out of a magnetic material. This is due to a phenomenon called hysteresis, in which magnetic materials show a resistance to any fast-paced changes of their magnetic level. This resistance creates friction, which contributes to the cooking heat. Induction heating improves rice cookers in three main ways: 1. The temperature-sensing methods can be more accurate, allowing for fine-tuned adjustments in temperature. 2. The heat distribution area can encompass the inner cooking pan, not just radiate upwards from below, to produce more evenly cooked food. 3. The level of heat being created in the cooking pan can be changed in an instant by strengthening or weakening the magnetic field that is generating it. These elements create the biggest bonus of the induction heating rice cooker. In the event of a human measuring error, an induction heating rice cooker can make minute adjustments to both the time and the temperature of the selected program because of its sensitivity to temperature, and its precise ability to control it. What is Induction Heating? Induction heating is a process which is used to bond, harden or soften metals or other conductive materials. For many modern manufacturing processes, induction heating offers an attractive combination of speed, consistency and control. The basic principles of induction heating have been understood and applied to manufacturing since the 1920s. During World War II, the technology developed rapidly to meet urgent wartime requirements for a fast, reliable process to harden metal engine parts. More recently, the focus on lean manufacturing techniques and emphasis on improved quality control have led to a rediscovery of induction technology, along with the development of precisely controlled, all solid state induction power supplies. What makes this heating method so unique? In the most common heating methods, a torch or open flame is directly applied to the metal part. But with induction heating, heat is actually "induced" within the part itself by circulating electrical currents. Induction heating relies on the unique characteristics of radio frequency (RF) energy - that portion of the electromagnetic spectrum below infrared and microwave energy. Since heat is transferred to the product via electromagnetic waves, the part never comes into direct contact with any flame, the inductor itself does not get hot (watch video at upper right), and there is no product contamination. When properly set up, the process becomes very repeatable and controllable. How Induction Heating Works How exactly does induction heating work? It helps to have a basic understanding of the principles of electricity. When an alternating electrical current is applied to the primary of a transformer, an alternating magnetic field is created. According to Faraday's Law, if the secondary of the transformer is located within the magnetic field, an electric current will be induced. In a basic induction heating setup shown at right, a solid state RF power supply sends an AC current through an inductor (often a copper coil), and the part to be heated (the work piece) is placed inside the inductor. The inductor serves as the transformer primary and the part to be heated becomes a short circuit secondary. When a metal part is placed within the inductor and enters the magnetic field, circulating eddy currents are induced within the part. As shown in the second diagram, these eddy currents flow against the electrical resistivity of the metal, generating precise and localized heat without any direct contact between the part and the inductor. This heating occurs with both magnetic and non-magnetic parts, and is often referred to as the "Joule effect", referring to Joule's first law – a scientific formula expressing the relationship between heat produced by electrical current passed through a conductor. Secondarily, additional heat is produced within magnetic parts through hysteresis – internal friction that is created when magnetic parts pass through the inductor. Magnetic materials naturally offer electrical resistance to the rapidly changing magnetic fields within the inductor. This resistance produces internal friction which in turn produces heat. In the process of heating the material, there is therefore no contact between the inductor and the part, and neither are there any combustion gases. The material to be heated can be located in a setting isolated from the power supply; submerged in a liquid, covered by isolated substances, in gaseous atmospheres or even in a vacuum. Important Factors to Consider The efficiency of an induction heating system for a specific application depends on several factors: the characteristics of the part itself, the design of the inductor, the capacity of the power supply, and the amount of temperature change required for the application. The Characteristics of the Part METAL OR PLASTIC First, induction heating works directly only with conductive materials, normally metals. Plastics and other non-conductive materials can often be heated indirectly by first heating a conductive metal subsector which transfers heat to the nonconductive material. MAGNETIC OR NON-MAGNETIC It is easier to heat magnetic materials. In addition to the heat induced by eddy currents, magnetic materials also produce heat through what is called the hysteresis effect (described above). This effect ceases to occur at temperatures above the "Curie" point - the temperature at which a magnetic material loses its magnetic properties. The relative resistance of magnetic materials is rated on a “permeability” scale of 100 to 500; while non-magnetic have a permeability of 1, magnetic materials can have permeability as high as 500. THICK OR THIN With conductive materials, about 85% of the heating effect occurs on the surface or "skin" of the part; the heating intensity diminishes as the distance from the surface increases. So small or thin parts generally heat more quickly than large thick parts, especially if the larger parts need to be heated all the way through. Research has shown a relationship between the frequency of the alternating current and the heating depth of penetration: the higher the frequency, the shallower the heating in the part. Frequencies of 100 to 400 kHz produce relatively high-energy heat, ideal for quickly heating small parts or the surface/skin of larger parts. For deep, penetrating heat, longer heating cycles at lower frequencies of 5 to 30 kHz have been shown to be most effective. RESISTIVITY If you use the exact same induction process to heat two same size pieces of steel and copper, the results will be quite different. Why? Steel – along with carbon, tin and tungsten – has high electrical resistivity. Because these metals strongly resist the current flow, heat builds up quickly. Low resistivity metals such as copper, brass and aluminum take longer to heat. Resistivity increases with temperature, so a very hot piece of steel will be more receptive to induction heating than a cold piece. Inductor Design It is within the inductor that the varying magnetic field required for induction heating is developed through the flow of alternating current. So inductor design is one of the most important aspects of the overall system. A well-designed inductor provides the proper heating pattern for your part and maximizes the efficiency of the induction heating power supply, while still allowing easy insertion and removal of the part. Power Supply Capacity The size of the induction power supply required for heating a particular part can be easily calculated. First, one must determine how much energy needs to be transferred to the work-piece. This depends on the mass of the material being heated, the specific heat of the material, and the rise in temperature required. Heat losses from conduction, convection and radiation should also be considered. Degree of Temperature Change Required Finally, the efficiency of induction heating for specific application depends on the amount of temperature change required. A wide range of temperature changes can be accommodated; as a rule of thumb, more induction heating power is generally utilized to increase the degree of temperature change.