Performance Characterisation of Aluminium Boiling Pot Using Some Selected Fractally Generated Internal Cylindrical Fins

Abstract

Aluminium Boiling Pots (ABP) are essential for heating water. However, there is need for enhancing Heat Transfer (HT) during the process of heating water using ABP on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) stoves in order to minimise LPG’s cost. Fractal induced surfaces being self-similar geometrical-objects have high potential for enhancing HT, but there is dearth of information in their use for ABP integrated with Internal Cylindrical Fins (ICF). Therefore, this study was designed to characterise the performance of a fabricated 7-litre Experimental Aluminium Boiling Pot (EABP) incorporated with generated ICF (Ø5 X 140 mm) using some selected Fractal Objects (FO) rules. The base thickness, height, internal diameter and external diameter of EABP are 10, 155, 258 and 274 mm, respectively. The EABPs denoted by EABP3, EABP5, EABP7 and EABP9 were obtained by placing 3, 5, 7 and 9 ICF respectively, inside the EABP. The locations of ICF were determined using each of the five FO rules namely Koch, Xmas-tree, Triangle, Fractal-L and Fractal-T. The EABPs and the Finless Control Standard (FCS) were filled with 500 cL water at 27.2 oC and heated to boiling temperature of 97.4 oC at 760 mmHg standard atmospheric pressure with flow rate of 0.083 litres/seconds LPG. The performance of each of the EABPs was obtained by estimating the Quantity of Fuel Consumed (QFC) and Length of Time (LT) to achieve the boiling temperature. The Relative Performance Ratio (RPR) of each of the EABPs with respect to FCS was obtained. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA at 0.05 level of significance. The QFC and LT for studied cases (EABPs and the FCS) ranged 82.0-94.0 g and 11.57-13.39 minutes, respectively. The Xmas-tree showed the best QFC gain of 10.4 and 9.5 % for EABP3 and EABP5, respectively. The Koch and Xmas-tree had the best LT gain of 12.0 and 10.4 % for EABP7 and EABP3, respectively. The RPR across all the EABPs ranged 0.98-1.25 with the highest at EABP3 using Xmas-tree and the lowest at EABP9 using Fractal-L. There were significant differences between the QFC and LT by the five FO and the FCS. In this study, it was established that the pot integrated with fractally positioned internal cylindrical fins exhibited enhanced performance characteristics and boil water faster using less quantity of fuel when compared to the traditional water boiling pot.