Is Air a Good Insulator?

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Is Air a Good Insulator?

This experiment investigates the loss of heat through different insulating materials. Heat is loss through conduction, convection and radiation these three procedures could be acting on the experiment whilst I am working on it.

Conduction: conduction usually occurs in metals they allow energy to spread through them quickly. It is the transfer of heat energy without the substance itself moving. Convection: Convection mainly occurs in liquids and gases. As the liquid or gas rises up it replaces the colder, dense regions. Convection is the transfer of heat by the movement of the substance itself.

Radiation: Hot objects releases infra-red radiation, the hotter the object gets the more infra-red it radiates. How much given out or taken in depends on the surface of the object. For examples dark matt surfaces emits more radiation than light shiny surfaces even if there are at an equivalent temperature. Also, dark matt surfaces are better absorbers (poor reflectors).

Planning:

Hypothesis: 

I think air is a good insulator, this experiment will show us if this is true and how this effects to amount for insulation. Before carrying out this practical, I think that less air gives out less insulation, I believe the material with the most air will be affective at insulation. I think air is a poor conductor of heat because the particles in air are quite far apart and this makes it a good insulator, so whilst air is trying to escape from one particle to another it would take longer. I know particles in the air are spread out because air is a gas.

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Equipment:                              Diagram:                

  • Bunsen Burner        
  • Stopwatch
  • 3 Aluminium can
  • Thermometer
  • Plastic bag
  • 2 sizes of bubble wrap
  • 3x150ml of Water

Firstly, each aluminium can was covered in a different insulating material, the three different insulating materials were plastics bags, small bubble wraps and large bubble wraps. The first can we tested was not covered with a material, we placed 150ml of hot water at a starting temperature of 77C and then measured the temperature of the water for 10minutes every minute this was our trail experiment. We felt that measuring the temperature ...

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