Development of a Flame Shield for use in Domestic Gas Stoves

Abstract

Gas stove is one of the most common and basic domestic appliances found in any home in the subcontinent. It is the foremost article used for cooking at home, and thus necessitates interaction with it by the users in a significant way. Despite the advent of more advanced devices like the microwave oven or the induction cooktop, a traditional gas stove reigns supreme in the lives of homemakers. Therefore, an endeavor was undertaken to design a product that would improve the usage and performance of a gas stove, by way of alleviating the general problems faced by users in its operation. Design thinking strategies had been followed throughout the stages of the product development, beginning with a customer survey to understand the desirable needs, followed by translating them into tangible target specifications for the product to achieve, and finally using the ideation techniques to develop the concepts into feasible product. The morphological method of concept generation yielded possible concepts aimed towards a solution, which were evaluated by following the analysis techniques of Forced Decision (FD) and Decision Alternative Ratio Evaluation (DARE). The filtered concept was then subjected to product architecture design, where it was given an efficient physical form by using the Computer Aided Design (CAD) software SolidWorks, and lastly, the parametric design result was evaluated by means of various Design For Excellence (DFX) guidelines. The product turned out to be an appendage to the existing stove, that would shield the flame and provide efficient operation along with enhanced safety and ease of use, as validated by DFX principles and a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) study to gauge its performance in relation to that of a standalone gas stove. This paper comprises of expositions of all the aforementioned processes as carried out, along with the final result, and pertinent analyses.