Keep the Heat in! Testing the Insulation Properties of Materials
Materials used to create a cardboard house to investigate thermal energy transfer.Copyright 2020 J. Williamson, University of Houston RET
How do engineers design materials that are useful to architects for insulation? In this activity, students use a homemade house made from cardboard to investigate heat transfer. They evaluate how long it takes to heat up the inside of the house and then compare it to how long it takes for the house to cool down after the heat source is turned off. From this, they make an evaluation about the effectiveness of the material to be used as insulation as well as if it would be cost effective or sustainable.
Engineers use different types of material for insulation in different areas of the world as well as different types of buildings. When evaluating new or different materials they need to make measurements about how well the material keeps heat in as well as how long it takes for it to allow heat to “flow out” of the building. This is then combined with the cost and sustainability of the material.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Measure rate of temperature increase and decrease for an enclosed system.
- Graph and evaluate the rate of temperature change.
- Describe the effectiveness of a material to insulate an enclosed system.
- Explain why different materials provide better insulation for thermal energy.