Development Projects in Columbus

1. Development Projects in Columbus How to Contribute to the Developing World Without Leaving Franklin County

2. Dale Andreatta, Ph.D., P.E. • 1983,84 BS and MS in mechanical engineering from OSU • Ph. D. from Berkeley, 1995 • I work for a consulting company in Worthington that allows me to work on projects like these as time allows • Involved in developing world projects since 1986 • Lots of possibilities for projects

3. What I’m looking for • Looking for partners, to work in a colleague-to-colleague setting.

4. What I can offer • Chance to work on interesting projects that make a difference in the world • Chance to be creative • Many contacts among people working on similar projects • Chance to learn good engineering • Opportunities for individual or group-studies credit (pending approval from faculty)

5. More background • As a mechanical engineer, I’ve always been interested in creative engineering. In 1986 it occurred to me that there is a large opportunity to do this in developing things for the developing world. This is the perfect place to apply simple but clever solutions, and really help people at the same time. Currently, I spend several hundred hours per year working on projects like these. It’s my favorite hobby. • Since 1986 I’ve worked on a number of projects, some successful ones that are being used, some projects that were successful technically but are not being used yet, and some unsuccessful ones. • While I haven’t been to the developing world yet, I’ve tried to pick up as much as possible about cultural and social aspects of what works and what doesn’t work. Some of the projects revolve more around these aspects that around technical aspects. • The projects I’m proposing revolve around mechanical engineering, but are appropriate for anyone, including possibly non-engineering students. With occasional exceptions, anyone is welcome to participate in any project. (I’ll talk about this more in my later talk, but I can quote many examples of non-engineers working in the field who’ve done very good engineering work.) • Contact information: Dale Andreatta, dandreatta@sealimited.com, 888-4160

6. Project #1-Practical stoves • In the developing world most people still cook over wood or agricultural residue (for example corn stalks) • These tend to be dirty and inefficient • Even a clean efficient stove won’t be used if it is difficult to work with • Stoves are needed that are clean, efficient, and PRACTICAL. • Currently I have 6 ideas for stoves to test, which I’ll get to someday.

9. Additional background on stove testing • As mentioned, clean efficient PRACTICAL stoves are needed. • This project is a very hands-on project, and would be good for a student or two who was good at working with their hands, and liked to build things. • Currently I have sketches for 6 stove ideas that may be useful. It would be best if the student would take these sketches and build the stove, but as an alternative I could build the stove, either with or without the students help. Most of these designs can be built in about an hour with minimal tools. I could pay for any materials, or provide tools if necessary. I would also provide guidance for how to do a good test. Stove prototypes can be made of sheet metal, bricks, and similar common materials. These would be good enough for a few tests, then later the stoves might be made of better materials. • Each stove would need to be tested several times. I find testing stoves to be fun. It’s rather fun playing with fire and doing simple experiments. The stove would probably be tested without any instruments at first, just seeing if it lights easily and burns well with little smoke. Within about half a dozen tests, it should be clear whether a stove design is worth pursuing. The whole process should take about 12 person-hours per stove. • These stoves should be clean enough that they can be burned anywhere outdoors without upsetting the neighbors. If it produces enough smoke that you have to worry about upsetting neighbors, it’s probably not a good design. • This is a low priority project for me, it’s something I’ll get to someday, but not in the near future. There are no timelines or deadlines. One could start immediately, or wait until later. This is really a project that revolves around the idea of “Let’s try it and see what happens” rather than a project with a tight list of tasks to be performed. It might be that the best stove combines elements of several designs. • Many good stoves have been developed by people who are not engineers, so anyone is welcome to try their hand.

10. Project #2 Carbon Monoxide and birth weight • Wood burning cookstoves produce CO, which produces both short and long-term health problems

11. CO in the air and in the blood

12. Carbon Monoxide (con’t) • We know that long-term CO causes low birth weight. (Up to 5% blood CO in smokers.) • In developing world, blood CO sometimes >>5%. • Lots of undersize babies in the developing world, even when mothers are well-nourished. Many don’t survive. • Is it CO? • If so, this is a huge health problem that hasn’t been studied.

13. Carbon Monoxide (con’t) • This project would involve 1 or 2 students reviewing medical/physiology literature and looking for a link between CO and low birth weight, then looking at the effects of CO levels in typical developing world kitchens. • This is something I’ll get to some time this year, but students could do it better and faster.

14. Carbon Monoxide Additional Background • The cookstove community is a small but well-organized bunch of mostly-volunteer researchers. • We’ve gotten good at measuring the air CO levels in kitchens, and recently we’ve learned how to relate this to blood CO levels. The blood CO levels correlate to health effects. We can more-or-less predict whether a given stove in a given kitchen will produce temporary CO poisoning. • This work would be expanded to study the effect of long-term CO exposure on pregnant women. This issue has been studied in terms of the effects of smoking on mothers in the developed world, but to my knowledge has not been studied in terms of the number of low birth weight babies in the developing world. • There are many deaths due to low birth weight in the developing world, and frequently the mother is well-nourished. This is potentially a huge health issue. • This project would be good for a student interested in biology, medicine, or biomedical engineering, or, a student who is a fast learner, since this is way outside the field of normal engineering. • Would take about 20 hours of student’s time, and would be done on campus, with no particular deadlines.

15. Project #3 Materials for solar cooker • Solar Cookers Int’l, of Sacramento, CA makes the Cookit, a low cost solar cooker. • It is currently made of aluminized cardboard, which is cheap and easy to fold and ship.

18. Cookit (con’t) • The cardboard works well, until it gets damp. • The cardboard is viewed as “cheap”. • A better material is needed, and can be a little more expensive if necessary. • Better bag is also required, that can withstand more cycles at high temperature. • A very hands-on project. • SCI is waiting for the results.

19. More background on solar cookers • There is a large and well-organized network of people around the world dedicated to promoting solar cooking. A number of simple box-like devices can be used to cook with the sun, and these work well in good sunny weather. The Cookit is a panel cooker, and there are also a number of panel cookers. • Solar cookers use no wood and produce no pollution, therefore eliminate problems associated with indoor air pollution and deforestation, both of which are big problems in parts of the developing world. The idea is not that a family would do all of its cooking with the sun, but perhaps half of its cooking, depending on time of day and weather conditions. • Solar Cookers Int’l has specifically requested that I work on this project, therefore, if the student achieves success, it is highly likely to be adopted by large numbers of people around the world. • I expect that it would take at least 20 hours of the student’s time to make good progress on coming up with a substitute material for the cardboard panel. Attacking the problem of the bag material is probably easier, and a student familiar with plastics, or who could become familiar with plastics, could possibly find a substitute much quicker. If a person wanted to spend a lot of time doing experiments and using the solar cooker, one could make this a full-time occupation. This is not required, however. • If one wanted to get into the world of solar cookers, both in terms of getting familiar with the technology and with the people, this would be a good way. • It would not be necessary to actually buy a Cookit, though it would help. They are about $20, and I could probably have one sent for free if you wanted one.

20. Project Tasks • This is a very hands-on project, good for a student or students who like to build and play with physical objects rather than doing a lot of analysis. • The student(s) would be looking for new materials for the bag and/or the panels of the cooker. Both are needed. These are separate questions, so the student could work on one or the other. The bag material is probably the easier of the two. • There is no particular deadline with this project, it could be started at any time, and stopped at any time. • Solar Cookers Int’l has specifically requested this, so if the student(s) come up with something good it WILL be used. • Regarding the question of the bag material, probably within 8 hours of work a person could either find a good bag material or find that they don’t exist. I could help with this. • The panel material would be tougher. This might take up to 20 hours. I would provide guidelines about how much the material could cost.

21. Project #4 Solar Water Pasteurization • Lack of clean drinking water is one of the leading causes of death in the developing world. • There are many ways to provide clean drinking water, and one of these is pasteurization. • Pasteurization (solar or otherwise) is the heating of water to a temperature sufficient to kill all germs, viruses, and parasites. • This temperature is NOT the boiling point, as many people believe, it is only about 65° C. • This can be done in simple solar devices, such as:

24. Pasteurizers (con’t) • All pasteurizers work well on sunny days, not at all on cloudy days. • It’s not clear how they work under partly cloudy conditions. • This summer I’ll test under partly cloudy conditions. • Hopefully, the results will be published in 2007. • This would be good project for students who are interested in a practical application of solar energy. • Are still-better pasteurizers possible?

25. More background on pasteurizers • I’ve been working on pasteurizers in some form since 1992. A summary of what I’ve done on pasteurizers is at www.accessone.com/~sbcn/solarwat.htm. • I’ve published several papers with the American Solar Energy Society about pasteurizers. It’s likely that the results of this study will also be published with them, at their 2007 conference, which is in Cleveland. Depending on how heavily involved students were, they might be listed as co-authors of the paper. At the minimum, students would be listed in the “Acknowledgements” section of the paper. • As mentioned before, is it not necessary to boil water to kill all the germs, viruses, and parasites. Many times you’ll see in books that it is necessary to boil the water, but this has never been true. These people don’t know their microbiology. The “father” of solar water pasteurization is Bob Metcalf, a microbiologist at Cal State Sacramento. He works in the field for a couple months per year, drinking pasteurized water and promoting solar cooking and pasteurization. • Pasteurization does not remove chemical contaminants such as salt from the water. In most cases in the developing world this is not a problem. Distillation is needed to remove chemical contaminants, but this requires about 20 times more energy per unit of water. • Pasteurization is only one way of providing clean water, and is not the best method in all cases. Pasteurization is somewhat unique, in that the system can be made very inexpensive. If you have a little money, a few dollars, you can provide water for an individual. • Better methods of pasteurization are still required, so there is opportunity to be creative in this project.

26. Test details • This would be a very weather-dependant project. It would start around mid-May and end not later than early October, unless of course we were done earlier. • The student would need to watch weather forecasts, looking for days that were partly cloudy. • Some tests could be done anywhere, but some tests would need to be done at my company where we have the proper instruments. • A student might spend 50-100 hours on this project, however, much of this would be waiting for things to heat up, hence the student could do other things in the meantime. Another option is that the student could set up the experiments in the morning at my company, after which the student could leave for the day. Then I would run the test during the day, which involves spending a few minutes taking temperature data every hour or so. • If the student didn’t want to spend 50-100 hours, but still wanted to get involved, talk to me and we’ll find a way to make it work.

27. Project #5 Wind energy • Not strictly a developing world project. • Wind power is proportional to the wind speed cubed. • Small increase in wind speed leads to a large increase in power.

28. Wind (con’t) • Is is possible to put a structure around a wind turbine so as to channel the wind and increase the power?

29. Such a structure must be- • Effective-able to increase the power significantly • Inexpensive • Can withstand high wind, possibly by folding out of the way

30. Previously studied idea (expensive, increases drag on tower)

33. Wind (con’t) • We would build a small wind tunnel and test about small models of 8-10 ideas. • We are (boldly?) going where no engineer has gone before.

34. More details • We would use the large fan at my company to build a small wind tunnel. Then we’d test ideas, using small models of each idea, and using a screen to simulate the wind turbine. • All work would have to be done at my company in Worthington. Since it would take a while to put together and dismantle the wind tunnel, we’d want to work in blocks of at least 4 hours. The student(s) could be there the whole time or not the whole time. One possibility is to select a weekend, and just try to bang out the whole project in a weekend. That way we wouldn’t have to assemble and dismantle the system several times. This is only one option however. • The total time involved might be 16 to 24 hours for all the experimental work. A student would not need to be present at all times. • There would also be some significant calculations, which the student could do, or I could do. For example, if we find that the system increases the power output by a factor of 2, we would calculate what this means in terms of kW-hr per year, and dollars per year, at a given location. Also, a cost estimate needs to be done. • I want to have this done by Dec. 1, which is the deadline for abstracts for the 2007 American Solar Energy Society conference, where I hope to publish our results.