Thermodynamics unit
This page is for the thermodynamics unit in engineering.
Renewable insulation project
For a project in engineering we had to come up with an insulator using materials we could find at out homes. The idea was to put it over a box with a light bulb in it and let it heat up for twenty minutes, and then cool down for twenty minutes and our goal was to keep the most amount of heat inside the box as possible.
The Constraints:
Could not be thicker than 1 inch
Had to be of uniform thickness
Must be enviromentally friendly
Must be recycleable
Had to be on consitent material on the inside
The Constraints:
Could not be thicker than 1 inch
Had to be of uniform thickness
Must be enviromentally friendly
Must be recycleable
Had to be on consitent material on the inside
our insulator
For our insulator we decided to use marshmallows, mainly because they were fluffy and soft, and we were hungry when we were deciding, so food was already on our minds.
As you can see we put a layer of duct tape on the top and a layer of duct tape on the bottom and then we put a layer of tin foil on the bottom as well, just for some added reflection of heat.
This is the graph that shows the rise and fall of heat inside of the box. the red line is the thermometer that went inside of the box, and the blue line in the thermometer that went on the outside of the box so measure the amount of heat going through the insulation.
thermodynamics practice problems
In the thermodynamics packet we received it had some practices problems.
One of the practice problems had to do with the R value of different materials, the R value is the level of insulation something is, for the R value all you do is add up the R values of the different materials in the certain area you are calculating.
Another one of the problems was calculating the net transfer of energy in a certain amount of time due to electromagnetic radiation, the example was from a students skin to the air on a bus ride home from school, we used the emissivity of the students skin with the time taken and the temperature of air. We had to use stephans constant and a lot of other long and complicated equations.
The third of the bunch was actually a simulation of he real project that would come later. we had to determine the thermal conductivity of a theoretical insulator, using the power (wattage) of the lightbulb, and thickness of the insulator and two temperatures given by the packet.
The fourth and final problem was we had to determine what the final temperature of an experiment would be after a certain amount of time. we had to use a mixture of equations and simple algebra.
One of the practice problems had to do with the R value of different materials, the R value is the level of insulation something is, for the R value all you do is add up the R values of the different materials in the certain area you are calculating.
Another one of the problems was calculating the net transfer of energy in a certain amount of time due to electromagnetic radiation, the example was from a students skin to the air on a bus ride home from school, we used the emissivity of the students skin with the time taken and the temperature of air. We had to use stephans constant and a lot of other long and complicated equations.
The third of the bunch was actually a simulation of he real project that would come later. we had to determine the thermal conductivity of a theoretical insulator, using the power (wattage) of the lightbulb, and thickness of the insulator and two temperatures given by the packet.
The fourth and final problem was we had to determine what the final temperature of an experiment would be after a certain amount of time. we had to use a mixture of equations and simple algebra.