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Rocket Scientist Designs "Flare" Pot That Cooks Food 40% Faster

Posted by samzenpus on from the but-I-want-it-now dept.

An anonymous reader writes Oxford University engineering professor Dr Thomas Povey just invented a new cooking pot that heats food 40% faster. The pot is made from cast aluminum, and it features fins that direct flames across the bottom and up the sides, capturing energy that would otherwise be wasted. The pot is set to hit the market next month in the UK. "Povey specializes in the design of high-efficiency cooling systems for next-generation jet engines. He is also an avid mountaineer and says that this invention was spurred by the long time it takes for water to reach a boil at high altitudes. He and a group of his students worked three years experimenting with different designs before they came up with one being marketed."

4 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Long time to boil? by sribe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A liquid boils when it reaches the temperature at which the partial pressure of its vapor equals the external pressure. Higher altitude means lower external pressure which means water boils at a lower temperature at high altitude which means a pot of water boils faster, but food cooks more slowly.

    No, I don't believe it boils faster. Granted, as you correctly explain, it takes less energy to boil water at high altitude, but there's other factors you're leaving out, for instance, the big one I know about: efficiency of combustion. So while it takes less energy to boil that water, guess what you're getting from your stove? A lot less energy...

  2. Improving cooking is not easy. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Back in my undergrad days I worked on a ducted windmill and my friend worked on improving the firewood stoves used by typical rural south Indian womenfolk. A circle of stones with an aluminium pot on top was what he was trying to "improve". Did some clay based sealing of gaps and nice clay ring to set the pot on top with carefully created vents. All using plain stones and clay. Was able to raise the efficiency of heat transfer to the pot. No material to buy at all, just stones and clay.

    Well, field trials revealed that he was too good and raised the temperature to nearly the melting point of aluminium! The flue gases and soot abraded the bottom of the pots and they started leaking in just a few sessions. The older inefficient method wasted firewood, but the pots lasted longer.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  3. "Invented" by indigenous people many times over by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'd hardly call the Flare pot a breakthrough, although it is a very smart design.

    Corrugated, punctated, ungulated, and other stressed-surface cooking pots have been around for thousands of years for this exact reason. The Guarani of Brazil basically perfected the technique in their incredibly efficient cooking pots--this was the topic of my Fulbright archaeological research in 2008-2009.

    In ceramics, a corrugated finish not only takes better advantage of the fire, but also prevents thermal stress fractures, so long as an appropriate temper has also been added to the clay. Archaeologist James M. Skibo has been studying the profound efficiency of indigenous cookware since the '80s. Where once archaeologists though of cookware as "crudware", it is now generally viewed as a technological feat of immense importance and skill.

  4. Re:Completely useless for me. by sir-gold · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Where do you live that they ban gas-flame cooking?