Background

Solar ovens use the suns light and heat to cook food. There are countless types of solar ovens and they are continously being modified. The major and most common types of solar ovens are box cooker, panel cooker, and parabolic cooker. Box cooker is the most common and traditional modern oven, food placed inside of the insulated box for the purpose of trapping and retaining solar rays that converted into heat energy. The panel cooker is another one that consists of a cooking vessel pot or pan that is darkened or blackened, and an oven cooking bag or transparent glass bowl along with a reflective panel. Finally, parabolic cooker (concentrator cooker) is different from the rest of the common solar ovens. It focuses a lot more light on cookware and heats up faster. For all of these ovens the size matters. This is because the interior volume holds the heat and the surface area releases the heat. The larger the solar oven the easier it is to reach higher temperature because it has a larger window so more heat will go in.

     Solar Panel Cooker                            Solar Box Cooker                         Solar Parabolic Cooker

Conduction and radiation are when heat is transmitted or transferred through a substance. Conduction occurs within a solar box is lost when it travels through the molecules of tin foil, glass, cardboard, air, and insulation, to the air outside of the box. However, for radiation glass trappings are more likely and more effective in trapping heat. Thermal conductivity is the ability of a material to be able to conduct heat, in a solar oven the materials with the highest thermal conductivity are aluminum foil, and plastic wrap.




The R-value is the capacity of an insulating material to resist heat flow. Therefore, the higher the R-value the more insulating power, or the less loss of heat occurs. The R-value is used in a solar oven because if there is a large R-value, then it means that the insulating power will also increase which in turn prevents heat loss.