Physics Investigation Essay, Research Paper
Physics
Investigation How does
insulation effect the loss of heat? In
this investigation I am going to try and find out what difference it makes if
you wrap newspaper round a beaker with hot water in it and see if the heat loss
is different at different thickness layers of newspaper. ?????? I carried out a preliminary experiment
and found out that by only increasing the layers of thickness by 1 each time,
that wont make enough difference to make a good graph because the trends will
be too similar.? So I chose to increase
the layers by five each time.Apparatus ·
Beaker ·
Stopwatch ·
Newspaper ·
Polystyrene ·
Thermometer ·
Kettle I
will also take a number of safety precautions whilst conducting the
investigation. I will ensure the kettle is used safely through out the
experiment, and hot water is transferred securely. . I will use protection when
handling the boiling tubes when the hot water is present. Safety precautions
are needed because I am dealing with hot water, which can scald. The following
things need to be acknowledged to, in order to keep this experiment safe.? I will be careful not to knock over the
beaker with the hot water in. I will be careful not to knock over other peoples
beakers. Care is needed when pouring hot water. I will not run with the beaker
of hot water. ?????? To make this a fair test I will have to
do the following.? I will keep the
volume of water the same.? I will wrap
the beaker with newspaper in the same way each time because some ways can
effect the heat loss more that others.?
I will place the thermometer in the beaker at the same place each
time.? I will place the beakers on
polystyrene when they are being tested because it insulates the heat.? I will use the same type of newspaper for
each experiment.? I will use the same
size beaker, which is made out of the same material.? The factors I will change are.?
I will change the layers of newspapers on the beaker. ?????? I will get 6 beakers.? I will record two at a time.? I will put polystyrene on the top and bottom
of the beakers when I have filled the beakers up with 150 ml of boiling
water.? There is a little hole in the
polystyr
for a total of 30 minutes.? There will
be 6 readings taken for each newspaper layer range.? I will record 6 different layers.? 0 layers, 5 layers, 10 layers, 15 layers, 20 layers and 25
layers.? This should give me a good
range of results. ?????? I predict that the more layers of
newspaper round the beaker, the less quickly the water will lose heat.? I say this because the more layers there
are, the more air pockets.? If there are
more air pockets the more hot air is trapped in the newspaper.? This air acts as an insulator.? I also predict that more heat will be lost
at the start of the experiment because the water is hotter, so there is more of
a heat difference between the inside and outside.? Therefore, more heat is conducted out the beaker because of the
cooler temperature outside the beaker.?
But as the temperatures even out the heat loss gets less, because less
heat is being conducted away from the beaker.?
So you should see a graph looking like this.Results (Temp
in C) Minutes 0
layers 5
layers 10
layers 15
layers 20
layers 25
layers 1 77 78 76 78 76 77 2 76 76 75 77 75 76 3 74 75 74 76 74 75 4 73 74 73 75 73 75 5 72 73 72 74 73 74 6 70 72 71 74 72 73 7 69 71 70 73 71 72 8 68 70 70 72 70 71 9 67 69 69 71 69 71 10 66 68 68 70 68 70 11 65 66 67 69 68 69 12 64 66 66 69 67 68 13 63 65 65 68 66 67 14 63 64 65 67 65 67 15 62 63 64 66 64 66 16 61 62 63 65 64 65 17 60 61 62 64 63 64 18 59 61 61 63 63 63 19 59 60 60 62 62 62 20 58 59 59 61 62 62 21 57 59 58 60 61 62 22 56 58 57 60 60 61 23 55 57 57 59 59 60 24 55 56 56 58 58 59 25 54 55 55 57 58 58 Analysing evidence and
conclusion Mt
results went down in a good trend.? All
apart from the 25 layers which cooler quicker than the 20 layers.? All the results are clear that they
gradually decrease in the graph, In a fairly straight line.? The more they are insulated, the slower the
temperature falls.? It is because the
newspaper traps air in between it and the beaker, this insulates the beaker and
traps hot air from escaping. Evaluation My
results were good. I conclude that the more layers around the beaker, the
slower the temperature falls.? I could
have measured stuff more accurately, but I didn?t have time. ???