fairfolio
Saved Projects

The Effects of Different Insulators on the Melting Rate of Ice

CSEF · 2007 Materials Science (Junior Division Only)

Brian S. Maloy · Marshall (Thurgood) Middle School, San Diego, San Diego County

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of this project is to find out which material used for insulation is the best. Also an alternative to fiberglass for insulating a house is another goal of this project. Methods/Materials This project used 13 different materials for testing how well they insulated. These materials were highest, middle, and the lowest grade of fleece, highest and lowest grade of fiberglass, newspaper, woodchips, cardboard, Styrofoam, foil, packaging peanuts, bubble wrap, and computer paper. Protective gear, wood, screws, and screen were used. Results The project found that the highest grade of fiberglass did the best with a time of 135 minutes, followed by the highest grade of fleece with a time of 118 minutes. The middle grade of fleece produced a better time than the lowest grade of fiberglas as well. The lowest grade of fiberglass (used to insulate the wall of a house) produced a time of 100 minutes. The worst material to be used as an insulator is computer paper. Conclusions/Discussion The conclusion to this project is that the insulation with the highest R-value did the best. For example the highest grade of fiberglass had the highest R-value so it did the best.

Summary statement

This 2 year study is about testing 13 different insulators and their ability to insulate a 250 ml block of ice for the longest period of time.

Help received

I received help from my mom, who drove me to get the materials I needed, my teacher, who kept me on and track.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2007 Materials Science (Junior Division Only) · Entry J1214

Resources

Related projects

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

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google