Introduction
In order to conserve energy and decrese expenses associated with climate control, proper insulations are required. The insulaters' goals, weather within houses, factories, is to retain a temperature difference with the outside world and at the same time to provide a positive healthy enviormental impact if possible.
Initial Design
For our initial design, we tried to use 2 styrofoam pieces each with thinkness less than 0.45 in. And in the middle between these two styrofoams, we added a layer of fabric in order to trap the heat inside and prevent it from escaping to the other side. Additional, in the last, we will wrap this design up with layers of aluminum foil to reflect the heat radiation of the light bulb back into the where it came from.
We also came up with another design, with more sophisitication this time. We used a total of 4 different materials, in order to isolate heat to the best of our knowledge. The reason we like to use Styrofoam so much is because is one of the best insulating material out in the marcket right now, and also for its high availability. Besides the styrofoam, we used cotton fabric in the middle also because the well knwon insulating properties of the cotton fiber. And then we also used the plastic board + plastic design (shown below on the Engineering notebook page), since they also have decent insulating properties, and their rigibility keeps everything in place. The second design wasn't choose eventually because it didn't pass the 1 in. thinkcness contraint.
We also came up with another design, with more sophisitication this time. We used a total of 4 different materials, in order to isolate heat to the best of our knowledge. The reason we like to use Styrofoam so much is because is one of the best insulating material out in the marcket right now, and also for its high availability. Besides the styrofoam, we used cotton fabric in the middle also because the well knwon insulating properties of the cotton fiber. And then we also used the plastic board + plastic design (shown below on the Engineering notebook page), since they also have decent insulating properties, and their rigibility keeps everything in place. The second design wasn't choose eventually because it didn't pass the 1 in. thinkcness contraint.
Brainstorming
Materials
above are the materials we chose to use to our insulation blocks, which mainly include styrofoams, cotoon cloths, cotton balls, aluminum foils and bubble wraps. We chose these materials because these materials had either good insulating properties or was able to reflect heat back into the testing cube. Testing cube is a object that we implemented to test the ability to seperate heat of our blocks, the light bulb within the cube produces heat and using two temperature probes, one placed inside the cube and one placed on the outside, we were able to detect the temperature differnece created by the bulb and maintained by the insulating block, so that he higher the temperature difference represents better insulating properties.
Our final design also used 4 different materials. But we were able to cut down the styrofoam to make it thinner than its original dimensions. What's great about our insulation block is that it is composed of 6 layers with each one having a different property and serving a different function. Styrofoam + bubble wraps trap heat within air bubbles, preventing the heat from leaving. Cotton balls prevents conduction of heat through the block while the styrofoam has the use of prevent convection through the air. Although all three amterials have similar function, they all have differnet insulation properties with styrofoam being the most effective. We chose Styrofoam as our main insulating material because according to our research, its countless air bubble in it allow the heat to flow in and trap it in the bubbles and thus effectively prevent the heat from escaping to the surface.
The displayed pictures are showing of our final finished product, with a thinkenss of just about 1 in. Our out coating was made of aluminum foil with the intention of reflectiing the heat radiation and thus reducing the amount of heat going through the block.
Thermal Energy Calculation
According the temperature provided by the software + temature probes, we calcualted that the
The net energy retained by the air inside the cube was 69.08 J
Max Temperature inside the cube is: 58.3 C
Max Temperatture outside the cube is 23.7 C
Max Temperature difference: 34.6 C
A qualitiative measure of the insulating ability is the differnece betweeen the maximum inside temp and the maximum outside temp. , our relatively large Max Temp different represents the good insulation brought by our block.
The net energy retained by the air inside the cube was 69.08 J
Max Temperature inside the cube is: 58.3 C
Max Temperatture outside the cube is 23.7 C
Max Temperature difference: 34.6 C
A qualitiative measure of the insulating ability is the differnece betweeen the maximum inside temp and the maximum outside temp. , our relatively large Max Temp different represents the good insulation brought by our block.
Final Cost
Material Cost($)
Total Estimated Cost : $0.30
- Styrofoam 0.05
- Cotton Balls 0.45
- Cotton Cloth 0.05
- Bubble Wrap 0.10
- Alumnium foil 0.05
Total Estimated Cost : $0.30
Summary
As seen above, our insulating block is very cost-efficient and is beneficial to the enviorment. All the materials that we used in this project are 100% recyclable and almost all of them are used products.
Overall, our insulator is very good at retaining heat within the cube as well as preventing heat from leaking though the material effectively. However, there are many aspects that we can improve on as well, including the small size of our cube that resulted not able to cover the opening of the themal testing cube effectively, and also the fact that it's too light to have a good seal. |
Most importantly, Our insulation block was awarded for the Min. heat loss during the cooling period!
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