Keep It Hot!
Student teams design insulated beverage bottles with the challenge to test them to determine which materials (and material thicknesses) work best at insulating hot water to keep it warm for as long as possible. Students test and compare their designs in still air and under a stream of moving air from a house fan.
The components of an insulated thermos bottle.Copyright 2006 Julo, Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Termosy-elementy.jpg
Development of insulated vessels is important in engineering, especially in the fields of mechanical, chemical and biological engineering. What students (and engineers) learn about the design and construction of insulated beverage containers can be applied to the design of insulation for houses, clothing and appliances such as refrigerators and ovens.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Identify materials that are good or poor thermal insulators.
- List modes of heat transfer and identify where conduction and convection occur in an insulated container.
- Describe the effect of insulation thickness on heat transfer.