Effects of insulation parameters on the energy consumption in domestic ovens and the most efficient insulation design

Istanbul Technical University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 34437, Turkey

Abstract

Studying on insulation and its parameters has some difficulties comparing to the other factors which affect energy consumption. On the other hand, not only computational studies, but also experimental studies are important in understanding the heat and fluid flow in domestic ovens. By having knowledge onhow insulation parameters effect on the energy consumption, getting efficient designs will come through easily. This study focuses on deciding optimum insulation design, by decreasing thermal bridges over itself. Firstly, experiments are performed for determining excessive heat region on a reference oven's insulation. Also these experiments are completed with two different thermocouple layouts in various temperatures and isotherm maps are generated for innerand outer chassis surfaces. Reference oven's insulation is also scanned by thermal camera. The results of overheated areas and thermal camera images are compared with each other. Different insulation designs are devised on the comparison of the conclusions. Standard energy consumption experiments are performed for each insulation designs under the working mode, which the dominant one in heat transfer, is forced convection. The most efficient insulation was scanned again by thermal camera and these thermal images showed that it decreased overheated areas on outer chassis surface. The experimental studies showed that energy consumption of the domestic oven decreased 4.5% with the new insulation design.