THE UNIVERSAL WOOD STOVE COMBUSTION CHAMBER

Due to the several recent challenges related to more stringent emission limits and testing standards in combination with increasingly airtight dwellings and associated problems of internal smoke leakage, all producers of wood stoves need to take imminent action within the next few years to develop closed wood stoves that can cope with both significantly reduced emissions and heat release. Historically, as well as today, small-scale heating appliances such as woodstoves provides an important contribution to the Norwegian as well as the total Nordic heat production, providing about 50 TWh in 2014. The current project was an umbrella initiative involving the main Norwegian wood stove manufacturers: NORSK KLEBER AS, DOVRE AS and JØTUL AS. It connected each companys in-house designers and development department with their regular contracted designers through a neutral third-party group consisting of scientific experts from SINTEF Energy Research (SINTEF) and expert designers from Bergfald Environmental Consultants (Bergfald) and Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet). The overall aim of the current project was to develop a more standardized wood stove combustion chamber for each industry partner, ultra-flexible and capable of complete and clean combustion mostly independent of the woodstove exterior design, to significantly save development time and total production costs for manufacturers. The project was finalized according to plans (2017-2019), regarding planned activities and meetings, both in plenum and separately with each individual partner. Meetings were carried out regularly and the information flow between industry and research partners was frequent and always passionate. The main aim of the project was to turn the industry?s focus towards an inside-out wood stove design strategy. This is what Jøtuls R&D manager has to say about being part of the project: "We are soon to introduce (2020) a new wood stove model in several variants, based on research performed through TheONE project. The combustion chamber has been designed for long-term use in future stove models and prototype development strategy. We are also working on a combustion chamber that will become the "engine" in more than 25 models, again a result of our participation in the NFR funded IPN project TheONE. TheONE has also provided helpful insight into air- and fluegas flow optimization through CFD simulations using Siemens FloEFD software, including combustion. Due to this learning Jøtul has gained real cost/efficiency benefits, being able to significantly reduce prototype development time. Standardization is now being implemented in all parts of Jøtul?s stove development programs, to reduce; cost, prototype development time, number of parts and storage costs." The CFD software (Siemens FloEFD) acquired through the project (2017-2018) was used extensively towards all industrial partners, to simulate various existing and new stove designs. An excellent pop-tech article was published in 2017 related to this (www.tu.no/artikler/hvor-effektivt-er-egentlig-vedfyring/414718), an article which is still, in 2019, being commented by passionate readers. Actually being one of the most commented articles in the web edition of "Teknisk Ukeblad" since its publication in 2017. Both SINTEF Energy, Bergfald miljørådgivere AS and OsloMet was involved in designing new/updated series of stoves, including market surveys and the understanding of the importance of a functional design, for all industrial partners. In 2017-2018 and early 2019, a design effort towards Norsk Kleber was carried out, resulting in new product design ideas and more standardized stoves. Norsk Kleber is doing quite well financially, increasing their marked share and have just recently (2019) initiated the export of several soapstone stove products to the US market. For a small ?corner stone? industry as Norsk Kleber, situated in Otta in the middle of Norway, this might just be the opportunity to ensure a more solid production volume. What regards Dovre, as part of TheOne, a group of 8 students from Product Design at OsloMet was given the task to create ideas and concepts in collaboration with Dovre Belgium. The results, presented to Dovre late 2018, was further translated into concepts or designs for what can be a design trend or opportunity for stoves (or related) for the future European market. Also, in 2018-2019, through TheONE, Jøtul used resources from both SINTEF and OsloMet to review/redesign some classical high-sales products, both in terms of design and performance. As an apropos, in a recent report from IMPELLO early 2019*, research on wood stove development was mentioned as one of 48 cases, showing that government funding of research activities related to wood stove development repays itself through increased value production. *www.regjeringen.no/no/aktuelt/ny-side/id2625970/

Jøtul about the project: «We are soon to introduce a new wood stove model in several variants, based on research performed through TheONE project. The combustion chamber has been designed for long-term use in future stove models and prototype development strategy. We are working on a combustion chamber that will become the «engine» in more than 25 models, again a result of our participation in the NFR funded IPN project TheONE. TheONE has also provided helpful insight into air- and fluegas flow optimization through CFD simulations. Jøtul has gained real cost/efficiency benefits, being able to significantly reduce prototype development time.» Norsk Kleber > new product designs ideas, standardized stoves > Initiated export of stove products to the US market. Dovre > New revolutionary prototype > Students OsloMet > ideas and concepts with Dovre Belgium > concepts or designs for what can be a design trend for stoves for the future European market.

The current project proposal is an umbrella initiative involving the main Norwegian wood stove manufacturers: NORSK KLEBER AS, DOVRE AS and JØTUL AS. It connects each company's in-house designers and development department with their regular contracted designers through a neutral third-party group consisting of scientific experts from SINTEF Energy Research (SINTEF) and expert designers from Bergfald Environmental Consultants (Bergfald) and Oslo & Akershus University College (HiOA). The aim of the project is to develop a standardized wood stove combustion chamber for each industry partner, ultra-flexible and capable of complete and clean combustion independently of the wood stove exterior design, to significantly save development time and total production costs for manufacturers. If the current project successfully reaches its objective to realize a combustion chamber as a universal and exterior-design-independent unit, functionally decoupled from the rest of the wood stove, it will be the base for new stove models for years to come. The combustion chamber remains as it is, already optimized and certified for emissions, while the surrounding design may vary from year-to-year depending on what the market demands in terms of style, shape factor etc. Since the results from the project will be of high importance for each industrial partner in their future portfolio, confidentiality within each group's line of work will be of uttermost importance during the whole project period.