A review of the thermal performance parameters of box type solar cookers and identification of their correlations

One of the many thermal performance parameters such as efficiency, cooking power, figures of merit etc. are used to evaluate a solar cooker (including box type) based on test procedures which are nonidentical. In the absence of an interrelation between the different performance parameters, it is very difficult to compare the cookers' performance reported by different researchers and establish the criteria required for selection of a cooker which can accomplish cooking successfully and satisfactorily. In this review paper, some of the performance parameters and the related test procedures have been reviewed for box type solar cooker. Further an attempt has been made to identify common links between the different performance parameters in terms of a few objective parameters. This provides an enabling tool to the researchers to compare and correlate the different performance parameters. Three such objective parameters have been identified for box type solar cookers. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.