Fire Umbrella

Nathan Sprik

Summary:

 

The fire umbrella is a portable device that can be used to allow a fire to be maintained in the rain. To do this the design needs to keep the water off the fire and not interfere with the fire burning. The main application of this device would be use during backpacking or camping trips. This would not be intended for home use, however could be. This is a unique design since, there are currently no products like this available on the market.

This project has several requirements, constraints; that had to be over come. First it has to be able to withstand both heat and flames along with rain, while having sufficient opening to allowing the fire to be maintained. Along with this is the need for it to be light weight and portable, this means that it must be able to clasp into a manageable size. Lastly it must be easy and quick to assemble in order to facilitate making camp in the rain.

Two main types of designs were considered, that had potential to satisfy the variety of requirements. One utilized the high tech fire resistant fabric Nomex for a fire covering, that was supported by a variety of pole/stake combinations. These designs promised to be extremely light weight and collapsible. However, upon testing Nomex, it was found not to hold up within a safe range for repeated use in this application. The second type design looked at a rigid steel frame with a thin metal sheet cover over the fire. This was the more bulky and heavy option. The initial concepts proved to be bulky, inefficient, and sometimes prevented access to the fire.

The design chose was based on the truss design, with the metal cover. Unlike the other design it used non-rigid trusses, making it a collapsible design. This design functions similarly to a fold out chair. It has two crossed trusses on opposite sides, these function as main supports. Connected to these two trusses are horizontal bars, one on high side and one on low side, which fasten the trusses together. Thin connected metal plates are attached by threading horizontal rods through key rings making trusses. These metal plates are designed to fold together, accordion style, in small four inch segments. Thin connected metal plates are attached by threading horizontal rods through key rings making trusses. These segments are designed so that the whole design is portable and can be folded down into a small bundle approximately (4”x26”x1”), weighing 4.26 lbs.