How will the altering of the surface area of brass melt

snow faster?
Zeke, Ori, Susan, Nate

Introduction- Our experiment is to test how surface area directly affects snowmelt with
brass weights of 200 grams. Therefore we are putting the laws of thermodynamics to the test to
see if more surface area is better for transferring of heat. More specifically Fourier's law which is
an empirical relationship between the conduction rate in a material and the temperature gradient
in the direction of energy flow. It was first formulated by Fourier where the vector is the heat
flux (W/m2) in the positive x-direction, dT/dx is the (negative) temperature gradient
(K/m) in the direction of heat flow (i.e., conduction occurs in the direction of
decreasing temperature and the minus sign confirms this thermodynamic axiom)
and the proportionality constant is the T hermal Conductivity of the material
(W/mK). The reason we want to do this is simple laws of thermodynamics and being able to test
how they work, and why they're so effective at the transfer of heat through materials. Before we
get into the world of glory of thermal conductivity. Thermal conductivity describes the rate of
energy, and heat that can flow through an object. First off we need to discuss the units of
measurements that we needed to use for the experiment. The units used the most for thermal
conductivity is W/m*C = K, where W is watts, m is meters, and C is well you guessed it, Celcius.
For example these matters we considerd testing from. The graph is from Nondestructive Testing
Resource center.

Material Thermal
Conductivity
W/m, oK

Air at 0 C 0.024

Aluminum 205.0

Brass 109.0

Copper 385.0

Ice 1.6

Wood 0.12-0.04

Steel 50.2
 Abstract
We decided to choose brass because we originally tried with wood, which was easy to
use, but was an insulator, which we realized halfway through the experiment with the trials, and
some research into it. Actually wood is a better insulator than snow (wood has a conductivity of
0.13 W/m C, and snow is 0.8 W/m C), meaning it would take an extremely long time to melt the
snow.

Question, Hypothesis
Our revised question was originally, How could altering the structure of a wooden block
affect the rate of snowmelt?. So what we did was we heated the blocks to 30 degrees celsius,
and then put them on a pile of snow that was 10cm high. Then we put the blocks on top of the
snow pile, and then measured which one melted the snow around it fastest. After 7 failed
attempts with the wood, we realized that the wood has close to the exact same amount of
thermal conductivity as the snow does. After that we had to make another revised question to
test, so we replaced the wood with brass. We followed the same steps as we had with the
wood, and collected accurate information. Our changed question was, How could we alter the
surface area of brass to increase the rate of snowmelt?

Methods, and Materials

We decided to choose brass because we first tried with
wood, which was easy to use, but was an insulator which we
realized halfway through the experiment with
the trials, and some research into it. Actually
wood is a better insulator than snow (wood
has a conductivity of 0.13 W/m C, and snow is
0.8 W/m C), meaning it would take an
extremely long time to melt. In our set up we
used a plastic bucket, where we measured,
and placed the pieces of brass upon the snow.
The process we used was to first heat up the
brass cylinders to 30 Degrees Celsius, then
placed them in a bucket and let them sink for
about one minute. We then recorded how far they sunk into the snow.
 Results

Diameter of Brass: 2.5 cm 3 cm 3.5 cm

Weight of Brass 200 g 200 g 200 g

Depth Sank: 1 cm 8.255 cm 7.9375 cm

` In conclusion, brass (heated at 30 degrees C) with a wider surface would melt snow
faster.

Discussion: But as well as the first experiment try we did not go through with that as well.
Eventually we came to the testing of brass weights and settled with that. Our hypothesis with
the brass was that the weights would sink through the snow at the same pace for each one.
When we tested the experiment and saw that the weights that were more together as a whole
sank faster than the weight with multiple pieces.The results are that number 2 went down
fastest and then 3 and then 1.

Bibliography
https://www.nde-ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/Materials/Physical_Ch
emical/ThermalConductivity.htm

http://www.thermopedia.com/content/781/

https://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Thermal_conductivity.pdf