To investigate the effect of insulators on the rate of cooling.

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AT1 INVESTIGATION

By Farah Kazi 10w

TITLE: The factors effecting Insulators. .

AIM: To investigate the effect of insulators on the rate of cooling.

Introduction: I will be investigating the rate of cooing, by using various numbers of layers of insulators round a beaker of hot water. The science which effect my investigation are as follows:

Conduction is a transfer of heat energy through a substance from the hotter region to the cooler region without any movement of the substance itself. As the substance is heated, free electrons spread through the substance bumping into other electrons and passing on Kinetic energy. Gradually energy is transferred along the substance. Radiation is the transfer of heat energy through waves. Hot objects emit mainly infrared radiation which can pass through a vacuum i.e. No medium is needed for its transfer. How much radiation is given out or taken in by an object depends on its surface

In this experiment I could have many variables. Ranging from colour to size. They are:

  • The material of my cup (ceramic, metal, glass, polythene, plastic)

-    The layers of insulators (no layers, 1layer, 2layer etc) [this is what I have        chosen to use as my variable]

  • Different types of insulators (wool, bubble wrap, foam, cotton, paper)
  • Different colours of insulators. (Black, transparent,)

Research and preliminary experiment:

        For when I did my ‘Preliminary experiment’ I found out that writing down the results every Thirty Seconds was not sufficient. As the results did not have a good spread out drop. So we decided to change it to every Two Minutes.

        Also, the temperature of the water was at 85°c. But using that as the starting temperature we found that the water would not boil up to that temperature. And so we would have to re-heat the water to get it to the exact temperature we wanted. Which took up a lot of our time. So we decided to drop it by 5°c. So, in the real experiment we will have the water at 80°c.

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        I think that in the end result the graph will look something like:

     

Prediction:

        I predict that when I change the amount of layers of bubble-wrap around my beaker, the more layers there are the slower the rate of cooling will be. So, therefore the fewer numbers of layers I use the quicker the rate of cooling.

        This is what I think will happen. Because I am using ‘bubble-wrap’ as my insulator the ‘bubbles’ in the material have trapped air in them. So, when the high temperature from the water ...

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