This project aims to design a stove that is fuelled by wax, rather than paraffin, in order to reduce the problems created by the use of paraffin and paraffin stoves among the urban poor living in South African townships and informal settlements. The project, in suggesting that conventional approaches to industrial design are inadequate to this task, seeks to explore more appropriate avenues for resolving the design-related problems that arise from the socio-cultural and economic conditions of poor urban communities. In order to more accurately address the needs of these communities with whom the designer may have little in common, indigenous knowledge traditions, and the needs associated with these traditions, are valued in defining the design problem. Fieldwork was conducted from this intellectual standpoint with the purpose of gaining a fuller understanding of the conditions under which paraffin stoves are used in South African townships and informal settlements, and to determine how these conditions should impact on the design of the stove. A set of recommendations, that are informed by the principles governing fuelled stove efficiency, and by which further wax-stove developments should proceed, is presented with reference to the findings of the fieldwork programme. The practical outcome of this research is the design for a wax-stove fuel system that accounts for the specific requirements of potential stove users and supports the most successful solutions to the problems of wax-stove ignition, control and shutdown that have been developed through the course of this project. / Mr. P. du Plessis
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:8776 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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