Department of

Engineering

Rocket Mass Heater

During 2011/2012 students from the Moroccan engineering school — ENSAM — collaborated with personnel from the International Development & Relief Board — IDRB — on the design of a Rocket Mass Heater for an elementary school in Bab Berred, Morocco. Union students and faculty collaborated with ENSAM students and IDRB personnel on the installation of the Rocket Mass Heater as well as other heating and insulation projects for the elementary school in Bab Berred. The installed Rocket Mass Heater is shown in the Figure.

The objective of the RMH installation in Bab Berred has been to provide the school with an efficient and clean means of heating its classrooms during the cold winter months. The installed RMH (engineering drawing shown), designed to burn wood, is a great start. However, the ministry of education in Morocco provides coal to the school districts and it is desirable to use this coal as a heating source. In an effort of ongoing collaboration, ENSAM, IDRB, and Union have continued work on this project and it has been our objective this semester to explore variations of the RMH that permit the use of coal.

One of the modifications made to the original design was to chip out a channel in the mortar beneath the burn chamber to create a lower air intake as coal requires air-flow from below (see Figure). This was covered by a grate on which the coals burned. Coal required more draft to burn cleanly and stay alight. The best way to start a coal fire in the rocket mass heater was to light the coals externally and place them in the burn chamber when they were already burning.

During the Spring 2013 Semester, students designed and constructed a coal based Rocket Mass Heater, details of which are displayed in the attached PDF Poster (attach PDF). Further, teams of 4 students each designed and constructed portable "Pocket Rocket" stoves, which competed in a cook-off competition to see which stove could boil 1-liter of water in the shortest amount of time. Videos displaying each team's pocket rocket are displayed next.

Team A: (Lydia DeWolf, Joshua Guthrie, Eric Ramirez, Zach Wadley)

Team B — Competition Winner: (Will Duncan, Andrew Tan, Matt Bentley, Taylor Mayo)

Team C: (Shane Caver, Jon Vunk, Cody Giles, and Chris Love) - no video available

We would like to extend a special thanks to Mr. Ron Friesen, who worked with us weekly throughout the semester and invested countless hours into the project. We would also like to thank our local and global supporters without whose support this project would not have been feasible: Dale's Recycling, Fireplace Center, IDRB, Jackson Fire-Department, The Chimney Doctors, TVA: Johnsonville Fossil Plant, Union University Art Department, and Union University Facilities Management.

Rocket-Mass Heater