The Ullo community is a predominantly farming community, and as such water is needed all year round the growth of crops. The community, as part of efforts to have water during the dry season (January to March), constructed an earth dam. The concept of the dam was to allow for water to seep through the soil underneath the dam and into the low-lying rice farms behind the dam. Unfortunately, the dam failed and needs to be re-engineered and reconstructed almost immediately. According to the resource persons on the site, the water in the dam could rise and flood the low-lying area behind the dam. Mr Razak, a resource person also said the community decided to place a PVC pipe that passed underneath the dam to control the flooding. But that did not work out as planned and also failed woefully.

 

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Bridge Project Meeting 16.10.2021

 

 

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The above pictures show us how difficult it is for people to move from one town to the other when it is the rainy season

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Project Statement/Scope

The primary objective of this project is to expand the learning opportunity of the students of Ullo by helping them explore new and in-depth agricultural practices. The secondary objective of this project is to show the community members and local farmers how relatively simplistic a rainwater catchment system is to build. This will be achieved by delivering a rainwater catchment system that supplies a sustainable, water-efficient irrigation system at the school’s garden during the dry season that has community buy-in and long-term scalability.

Design Description

1. Gutters Sub-Assembly: 44 ft of the gutter with a pitch of 1 inch will be nailed along the south edge of the dining hall roof.
2. Connection to tanks Sub-Assembly: Immediately after the roof ends, a downspout adapter will allow for pipe to be routed at an angle and for the cross-section of the flow to change from square to circular as desired. A coarse filter will catch debris in the gutter flow before it can enter the tanks. A fine filter will be installed within the circular section of pipe to catch any debris that may not have been caught earlier.
3. Tanks Sub-Assembly: There are four tanks that will be provided by the school. Two of the tanks are 5.5 ft tall with a 5.81 ft diameter that holds 4500 litres and the other two are 6.16 ft tall with a 4.92 ft diameter that holds 3500 litres. The tanks will be lined up along the west side of the building with the 3500-litre tanks further south.
4. Tank Stand Sub-Assembly: The tank stand for the 3500-litre tanks will have a height of .4575 m, and a width and length of 1.55 m. The tank stand for the 4500-litre tanks will have a height of .4575 m, and a width and length of 1.83 m.
5. Above ground piping Sub-Assembly: 1-inch HDPE piping will be connected to the holes at the bottom of each tank. These pipes will connect to either a 90-degree elbow or a three-way tee depending on their tank placement. About 20 feet of piping will connect all of these elbows and tees together and a third tee will connect this sub-assembly to the below-ground piping subassembly. A one-way check valve will be placed before the third tee to control backflow caused by the differing tank heights.
6. Below ground piping Sub-Assembly: About 125 feet of 2-inch HDPE piping will bring the water from the above-ground piping to the drip irrigation system following the path outlined below.
7. Drip Irrigation System: Includes a system of HDPE piping spanning a total of 300 feet (5 rows of 60 feet). This system would enable irrigation to 100 tomato plants for 80 days. The pipes are connected to one another with elbows. The drip line would likely come with pre-drilled holes for emitters to be placed. The ideal distance between each emitter is 36”, but various distances will also work.
8. Temporary Fence: There will be a temporary fence while the living fence is becoming established. This fence will serve the purpose of keeping animals out of the garden and projecting the irrigation system from damage. It will be made of barbed wire wrapped around large poles along the perimeter of the garden.
9. Living Fence: The living fence will be planted via seeds around the perimeter of the garden before the rainy season. This allows for the seeds to be watered naturally and less maintenance during the early stages of growth. The fence would keep out humans and small animals when it is mature. Pruning will need to be done during the first few years to establish a shrub-form. The branches that are removed in the process can be used for firewood among other things.
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These stoves create the following concerns:

1. Efficiency: the open design of the stoves creates a lack of focused heat to the pot. Therefore, more fuel is needed to heat the pot of water.
2. Smoke and User Health: these stoves are not well ventilated and do not direct the smoke away from the user. This means that the user can easily breathe in the smoke easily which is a safety concern.
3. Reliability: due to the construction of the stoves, the stoves break down easily when rain or other harsh weather comes. This means the community has to rebuild the stoves often.

To cook on these stoves, the team uses 3 different sizes of pots. These pots are very large and heavy. The sizes are named by 50, 30, and 60. The dimensions of the 50 are 67cm in diameter and 53cm for height. The dimensions of the 30 are 56cm in diameter and 40 cm in height. And the dimensions of the 60 is 77cm in diameter and 59cm in height.

The team was tasked with creating stoves that fit the size of pot needed, improve all current state concerns, and is low cost for the community to rebuild.

Implementation History

In Fall 2018, a team travelled to Ullo to implement a small-town water system. While there, the team noticed the concerns with the stoves. This led to the creation of the engineering team to face the problems of the stoves. From January 2019 to December 2019, the team researched stove designs and created a design that was believed to be ideal. The design used a brick size that was currently made in the community to save cost and limit added complexity to the design. Due to the unusual brick sizes, the team created a design that was less optimal on the efficiency of the design, yet it would still be an improvement from the current state. The design is shown to the right.

In December 2019, a new travel team went to Ullo to implement these stoves. Unfortunately, the brick sizes from the plans did not match the community’s brick size. This caused the stove to not be implemented. In January 2020, the team worked on a new design which is shown in the section below. The following issues from the previous design were addressed and updated:

1. Size of Bricks: changed to use EWB set size of bricks.
2. Inlet Size: changed to accommodate the size of wood in the community.
3. Height of Combustion Chamber: changed to create a more ideal ratio between inlet size and height. The needed height of the camber caused the air chamber to be moved underground, so the air could still flow properly, but the height of the entire stove was optimal.
4. The shape of Design: became more efficient in terms of the number of bricks; improved on ergonomics from the previous design.

Updated Design

After our last winter travel trip, the kitchen stoves group decided to redesign the kitchen stoves from the ground up. We ended up this the design we currently have now, which is made from two types of bricks and features design improvements such as, Dakota fire hole, optimized burning conditions, and refined ergonomics.

In Figure 1,  you can see the Dakota fire hole which provides air circulation into the fire forcing smoke up and out the back Chimney, which is the opening above the Dakota fire hole.

In Figure 2, you can see the opening to insert fuel into the stove,  which has been made larger to better fit the type of wood they use in Ullo. Additionally, you can see the crossbar holders at the top which allows one to lift the pot out of the stove. Finally, in this view, you can see the total height of the stove which is 42.5in.

In Figure 3, you can see the internals of the stove. Its central shaft has a uniform cross-sectional area, which allows for the best airflow. As well you can see the gap between the shaft and outer walls that will be filled with insulative materials. Lastly, from this view, you can see the removable grate we have at the bottom which makes ash removal easier.  note: the grate could be made as seen, but a more open metal grate is the best option.

Conclusion

We will continue to polish our current design and attempt to create a downsized prototype model to test. As well we will work on creating easy to read the instruction manual for creating the stove. Finally, we will implement our new design in the winter of 2020 and modify our designs based on the data we collect then.

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