Scribd
Upload
17 views

Critical Thinking Activity 2

The document describes a proposed experiment to determine the heat capacities of different metals by measuring temperature changes when heating metal blocks. Copper, stainless steel, cast iron, and aluminum blocks will be heated for 10 minutes using an immersion heater while measuring temperature, current, and voltage to calculate heat capacities. The results could help identify the most efficient metals for pans and other applications.

Uploaded by

Jeff BEzos
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
17 views

Critical Thinking Activity 2

The document describes a proposed experiment to determine the heat capacities of different metals by measuring temperature changes when heating metal blocks. Copper, stainless steel, cast iron, and aluminum blocks will be heated for 10 minutes using an immersion heater while measuring temperature, current, and voltage to calculate heat capacities. The results could help identify the most efficient metals for pans and other applications.

Uploaded by

Jeff BEzos
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

Critical Thinking Activity

Name: Ali Kefel

Area of interest in IGCSE physics

Thermal Physics => Heat capacity

Think of an experiment you can design on the area of interest you have stated.

- I will test the heat capacity of various metals to see what is the most efficient.
The metals I will be using are used to make frying pans for cooking. This
experiment will tell us which pan needs to the least amount of energy to heat up
the pan by 1°C.

Explain briefly how you will design the experiment:

- Instead of getting the specific heat capacity of the metals I will be using from
secondary resources I will test it myself.
- The 4 types of metals I will be using are: Copper, Stainless Steel, Cast Iron and
aluminum.
- Firstly, I would measure the initial temperature of each block by using a digital
thermometer.
- I will be using 1Kg blocks of each metal and testing the specific heat capacity of
each one, I will heat the blocks by using an immersion heater which is
connected to a power supply. An ammeter and voltmeter will be connected in
the circuit to measure the current and volts which we can use to calculate the
power.
- The blocks will be insulated to prevent heat loss to the air and will be heated for
10 minutes.
- After recording the change in temperature, average current and the average
voltage for each block, I will do: Current * Voltage to give me the Power. Then I
will do the Power * 600 seconds (10min) to give me the Energy in Joules.
Q
- The equation for specific heat capacity is c= so I would need to divide the
m∆T
Energy by 1kg multiplied by the (final temp – initial temp) I would repeat this
process for each block, by doing so I would have the specific heat capacity of
each block of metal.
- Finally, I will record the results and plot them on a graph

How are these concepts in the experiment you are designing applied in real life?

- By finding the specific heat capacities of those various metals we are able to
find the thermal capacity of objects that are made from that metal by multiplying
the SHC by the mass of the object, this is done using the equation
Thermal Capacity=mc
- By having the thermal capacity, we know how much energy is needed to raise
the temperature of an object by 1°C.
- We will then know which pan will require the most energy to heat up and
therefore we can figure out which pan is the most efficient for the job that’s
need to be done

Is there a useful conclusion you can reach with this experiment?

- This data might be useful for companies that manufacture pans, they will need
a material with a high heat capacity for the handles and the lids of the pans.
- Some metals are better suited for certain jobs than other metals and figuring
out which metals would make everything more efficient and save you time and
money.
- If a different object made from the same metal as the ones, we used we in the
experiment, doesn’t confirm our results we can assume it is an alloy or not
pure.

Questions for research:


- Specific heat capacity formula.
- What industries use SHC data.
- How to calculate SHC of a block. (heating element used)

Questions to answer (Choosing search terms):


- What sort of language will be used in the sources you are searching for? What
key terms/phrases will you use? What happens to your search results when you
use a more formal term?

- What synonyms (try referring to a thesaurus) or related terms will be useful for
your search and how do these affect your search results?

- What terms can you “put together” and with what search results?

- How would you write an effective ‘Boolean Operator’ for your search and how
does this affect your search results?

Questions to answer (Assessing search results):


- Why would you change the way your search results are displayed? How might
this affect your examples and the search results?

- How do the criteria mentioned in this film affect your search results?

- What should you do to further narrow your search when you have a good set of
results? Why do you think this is? What results do you get when you do this?

Questions to answer (Building on good sources):


- How do you use your best sources to find additional ones?
- A: You could look at references to find the sources that the author used. We can
also click on the subject headings to find related sources that share the same
subject headings.

- Explain the two methods and note down the results you found from doing this
with your own example.

You might also like