Dear Ron
>1. The paper I cited (http://cfc.kscia.or.kr/new/wwwboard/admin/wwwboard/attach/1087363006/26.pdf ) was Understood. >2. At: http://www.thermomax.com/Downloads/How%20Works.pdf, Understood. >3. I am trying to move the discussion away from solar collectors - for reasons of getting more pots active with a single biomass flame. This is exactly why I mentioned the problem of getting the heat into the heat pipe. Viewed systemically, the heat pipe is an insulator between the fire and the pot, albeit a good heat conducting one. As noted in the first paragraph of http://www.dl.begellhouse.com/download/article/2f3e64f4394d33a5/HPST0102%20( 151-162).pdf the heat flux for the device is running in the range of 100 W/cm2. Given the low temperatures in a wood fire, this would be really difficult to even approach unless it were some kind of oxygen-gas flame. The device described is a loop heat pipe, not really a 'heat pipe' the way the Israelis talk about them. They refer to the real 'diode' type device that only lets heat rise vertically. It is approximately a pumped dual phase thermosiphon (as if that makes sense!) using phase change as the main heat transfer mechanism, which keeps it small. The problem lies in the 'Evaporator' thingy which is what I referred to: how the heck do you get the heat from the fire into the water (or fluid) using that evaporator thingy. If you could get an 80% heat transfer efficiency for a gas-exchanger and another 80% to a string of pots it would get 64% overall, which is about the same as an LPG flat topped cooker. Pretty good. Incidentally the LHP device is sort of like a thermoacoustic generator with a phase change in the working fluid at the cold end. Regards Crispin
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