Evaluation of the eíficiency of fuel in traditional tobacco curing ovens Evaluación de la eficiencia del uso de combustible en los hornos tradicionales de curado de Tabaco

Abstract

Tobacco has become one of the most important crops in Colombia, generating employment for both skilled and unskilled workers. In the post-harvesting of tobacco were found several problems to be solved, one of them conceming the high cost of the fuel used in the curing ovens. Therefore, an evaluation to the traditional heat exchanger, bumer type, to determine the eíficiency of the fuel used, was performed. The information obtained shows clearly the great dilficulty with this system of heat transfer by natural convection to maintain stable temperatures inside the oven, creating environmental conditions that deviate significantly from those required for this process, depending these variations largely on the frequency of loading of the burner, we also found that the use eíficiency of the energy delivered by coal is less than 10%.