Rate of heat loss

The first 200 words of this essay...

Planning (a)

Aim: To investigate the factors which affect the rate of heat loss from a body.

Theory: In this experiment we will study how several factors affect the rate of heat loss by carrying out investigations to test different hypotheses made concerning size, insulating layers, speed of evaporation of water, surrounding medium, etc.

Several observations and claims can be explained using theoretical knowledge about the nature of a body and the rate of heat lost from it.

1. Short and fat people tend to lose heat more slowly than tall and thin people of the same body weight because their surface area to volume ratio is much smaller. As the rate of heat loss is directly proportional to the surface area volume ratio this means that even though the body weight is constant, this rate is higher in tall thin people than in short fat ones.

2. Several thin layers of clothing (insulating layer) keep you warmer than one thick layer as they contain a lot of air spaces in between which help to trap heat and hence reduce heat loss. As these tiny pockets containing air are absent in a single layer, it