Effect of flame impingement on thermal performance and CO emissions of gas-fired domestic burners

Cooktop burners are widely used in metropolitan cities like Hong Kong. However, design of these thermal systems mainly relies on designer's experience rather than based on scientific analysis. There are two major problems in using the cooktop burners, viz. energy utilization and indoor air pollution. The proposed study will concentrate on their thermal performance: flame stability and heat transfer from the flame to the impinging surface, which are very complicated problems depending on several engineering parameters. In view of the need for a better understanding of engineering factors affecting cooktop thermal performance and associated gaseous emissions, Design of Experiments(DOE), a key tool in the Six Sigma technology, was applied to evaluate the magnitude of individual and interaction effects of each of these parameters on the thermal performance and gaseous emissions of the gas-fired domestic cooktop burners. In this study, in view of their impact on indoor air quality, carbon monoxide(CO) and nitrogen oxide(NOx) emissions were measured.