This thesis reports research into the use of brown coal briquettes in domestic heating appliances. The performance of three commercially available heaters was determined and a prototype heater with improved performance was designed and tested. Testing of the commercially available heaters when fuelled with briquettes, wood, or a mix of the two, involved safety (in accordance with AS2918), efficiency, power, creosote, burn time, ash and particulate emission measurements. Results showed strong dependence on heater design, with one design showing reasonable performance ; efficiency of 58% and 5 grams per hour emission rate, whereas the least satisfactory had an efficiency of 54% with an emission rate of 36 grams per hour. The information gained from testing these heaters and conclusions drawn from the scientific and technical literature was used to design and construct a briquette burning heater. The prototype built was a downdraft heater with an inbuilt gravity feed fuel hopper. The emission rate of the final prototype was found to be 3.54 grams per hour, the average overall efficiency was 69% and the power output range was 3 to 13 kW. These values were better than the original parameters aimed for when designing the heater.
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Copyright 1990 the Author - The University is continuing to endeavour to trace the copyright owner(s) and in the meantime this item has been reproduced here in good faith. We would be pleased to hear from the copyright owner(s). Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-99). Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Tasmania, 1992