Insulating Inquiry Lab Question: Which fabric insulates best when wet?

Variables: Manipulated- Type of fabric Responding- Temperature of the water that the fabric is insulating Controlled- Amount of water in beaker, temperature of water in beaker, amount of water put on fabrics, temperature of water fabric is soaked in, the placement of the fabric around the beaker, amount of time fabric insulates the beaker for Hypothesis: We think wool will insulate the best when wet. Procedure: 1: Gather materials (2 beakers, 1 piece of each fabric type-wool, nylon, polyester, cotton, thermometer, boiling water, laptop, long strip of tape) 2: Put 25ml of room temperature water in one beaker 3: Soak first fabric in water 4: Wrap fabric around beaker leaving top uncovered 5: Pour 500ml of boiling water into beaker 6: Stick thermometer in and start graph on laptop 7: Graph for 3 minutes, and then take thermometer out 8: Save graph 9: Repeat steps 2 through 8 for the remaining three fabrics 10: When finished, print off graphs Data: Graphs Conclusion: Our hypothesis was correct, wool insulated best when wet. We found that wool was able to trap the heat and keep the water temperature in the beaker higher for longer than nylon, cotton or polyester.

Part B: Extension Questions 1. The nylon fabric had trouble soaking up the water so it may not have had as much water on it as the wool, polyester or cotton. If it had then maybe it would have changed the way it insulated. Another error was the water cooling down from the time we poured it to the time when we stuck the thermometer in. if we had poured the water right at the table and immediately put the thermometer we may have gotten more accurate results. We could have also covered the top of the beaker with the fabrics to allow for convection to circulate the heat and possibly keep the water temperature higher for longer. 2. a) Wool was the best insulator while wet, in our experiment as wool traps lots of air pockets in between the fibers. Since the fibers are so close together, the water can not fill up the air pockets keeping water away from the beaker and trapping heat to keep the water warm. The wool insulator makes heat transfer slower as it reduces conduction. Conduction heat transfer happens when heat moves through an object. The heat excites the molecules in a heated object making them vibrate and these molecules excite the ones next to them. The closer packed the molecules are in an object, the more rapid the heat transfer. In wool the molecules are spaced fairly far apart, causing it to take more time for the molecules to transfer the heat allowing the wool to keep the water in the beaker hotter for longer. Convection did not play a huge part in our insulator experiment as the water in the beaker was not being heated while we did our trials. In convection the water or air when heated expands, becomes less dense and rises while the cool air sinks. This creates a circulation of air or water that leads to even heating all around. The top of our beaker was not covered by the wool and the hot water once it expanded would have just escaped through the open top moving by currents, taking thermal heat energy with it and cooling our water down faster. b) The nylon fabric was the worst insulator in our experiment. Nylon was not a good insulator as it let heat escape form the beaker by conduction. Nylon does not have as many air pockets in it as wool does; the molecules are packed closer together. When the heat from the beaker is trying to escape and heats up the nylon fabric, these molecules start to vibrate and vibrate the ones next to them. The heat is able to transfer very fast from the water to the nylon fabric, cooling down the water temperature quickly as the thermal energy is transferring faster. Leaving the top uncovered on our beakers would have cooled the water down even faster. Through convection the water would have been hot enough that it would expand, become less dense and rise, leaving the beaker by movement of currents. 4. Which fabric insulates best in the wind? Variables: Manipulated- Type of fabric Responding- Temperature of water in beaker Controlled- amount of water in beaker, starting temperature of water in beaker, same size fabric pieces, same amount of wind blowing on beaker (wind from a fan), fabric wrapped around beaker same way, same amount of time for each trial