DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF A SMALL SOLAR POWERED AIR BLOWER FOR CHARCOAL FIRED FURNACE

Abstract

In Nigeria almost all the local foundry shops rely on the manually operated blowers for supplying air for the combustion of the charcoals to melt metals. This manually operated blower has showed that much man-hour is required during firing as one laborer is dedicated to driving the rotary blower. This is labourous and reduces the rate of productivity of the enterprise. Therefore, it is necessary to find easier ways of supplying the energy required for the combustion so as to increase productivity. A solar powered blower is designed and constructed in this work. The performances of manually operated and solar powered air blowers are compared. Performance results of the manually operated air blower showed that it takes about 67 minutes and 42 minutes to melt 4kg of aluminum and zinc respectively. On the other hand, for the solar-powered air blower, it takes about 30 minutes and 17 minutes to melt 4kg of aluminum and zinc respectively. This indicates that the solar-powered air blower takes a shorter time to melt metals when compared with the manually operated air blower. In addition, the solar powered air blower eliminates the laborious aspect of supplying energy for melting metals and also reduces the times spent in metal melting process.