Don't Hesitate to Insulate

Overview

Objectives/Goals Different kinds of fabrics are being used today to create insulating clothing to protect humans from the elements of nature. Wool fibers has a long history of being one of the best fabrics for insulating. However, new technology has created new man made fabrics that are replacing the use of wool. Methods/Materials The insulating abilities of wool, and five other fabrics, cotton, linen, acrylic, polyester fleece, and vinyl were tested in this experiment. The hypothesis of this experiment was that wool would keep the water temperature the warmest, for the longest amount of time. Each of the six fabrics were wrapped around glass jars, and hot water was poured into the jar. At 30 minute intervals, the water in the six fabric covered jars were tested. At the 180 minute mark, the water in the wool covered jar and the water in the polyester fleece covered jar were the same temperature. Results The results of this experiment were expected and unexpected. Conclusions/Discussion Wool did prove to keep the heat from escaping the jar for a longer period of time, however the polyester fleece did just as well.

Competition history

• CSEF 2005 Physics & Astronomy · Entry J1516

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Physics and Astronomy projects
• CSEF Physics and Astronomy projects
• Every CSEF 2005 project