Hot Water in a Immersion Heater
Background Knowledge:
Water may be used to heat up water during the night using an immersion
heater this is to take advantage of the cheap rate of electricity. But
the problem is to keep the waterÂ’s heat till the time when it is used.
E.g. for a bath or washing up. Immersion heaters are used in many
homes and are very efficient. They insulate heat well, this is because
most of them have an insulated jacket which is mainly made out of a
fibre glass wool and are coated with a bright colour this is because
fibre glass wool is very thick and does have many air holes in it.
This is good because heat air is a good conductor of heat and a bad
insulator of heat, therefore the fewer the air holes the fewer the
heat is that is conducted. Also the being as the wool has an outer
colour coat which is bright this is also good as bright colours are
good emitters of heat. I will conduct my own experiment to see if what
other materials are good insulators of heat, by making my own mini
boiler jackets and testing them.
Key Factors:
Immersion heaters that we are using are tin cans which are filled with
heated water. Therefore I also will have to consider in my experiment
what will effects that the types of materials will have on my results.
Due to this I will consider the size and shape of my tins that I will
put the water in, also I will have to keep the same volume to make it
a fair test. I will boil my water to 70ËšC, for each material I test. I
will also consider the type of material I use, considering the cost of
each one.
Aim:
I have to also consider the mass and the thickness of my material as
if it is too thin then my experiment will not be very efficient or
work very well. This may cause me to have flexural results which I