Abstract
This study was performed to develop a hot water boiler system with small scale automatic rice hull furnace for the multi-purpose use in the farm. For the experiment a prototype hot water boiler system with rice hull furnace was fabricated, which was equipped with automatic hull feeder, igniter and ash removal device. Optimum operational conditions of the prototype: system were analyzed. The results arc summarized as follows. 1. The temperature measured right above the burning surface should be higher than $500^{\circ}C$ combustion. 2. The top zone of the combustion chamber was the most suitable location of the thermocouple to pick up the control temperature for the automatic operation of the rice hull furnace. 3. The content of carbon monoxide in the flue gas was increased with the filling height of burning material but it was less than 0.3 percent in volume in this experiment. When the filling height was expressed as the ratio of rice hull feed rate to the volume of the combustion chamber above the burning surface, the optimum ratio was about $150kg/m^3-h$. 4. The combustion efficiency of the prototype was higher than 95 percent when the feed rate was 1.1 to 2.3 kg/h and moisture content of rice hull was 22.4 percent (w.b.) or less. 5. It was estimated that the optimum operational conditions of the system were 1.3 to 2.0 kg/h in feed rate, 70 to 100 percent in excess air and 500 to $510^{\circ}C$ in control temperature. 6. The efficiency of coil heal exchanger increased with a decrease in feed rate of rice hull. When the rice hull feed rates were 1.1, 1.7 and 2.3 kg/h, the efficiencies of coil heat exchanger were about 34, 30 and 25 percent and heat transfer rates were 5.7, 7.6 and 8.8 MJ/h, respectively. When the flat plate heat exchanger was used in addition to the coil heat exchanger, the efficiency of the heat exchanger system increased to 48 percent.