Term paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Term Paper Example Among the properties that matter in thermodynamics and the principles applied hereby, specific heat of a substance occurs to be one of the most significant, particularly as it relates to heat, being itself the quantity of heat required for a unit mass of the substance to experience a degree of temperature change. Analyzing this truth in association to a changing weather should make us ponder on the connection between specific heat and the capacity of an object to withstand real climatic variations. It appears that the higher a material’s specific heat is, the more that such material is capable of holding large amounts of energy, in the form of heat, prior to weakening or wearing down by external forces of nature. Hence, engineers calculate and design hand-in-hand with thermodynamic concepts and prefer schemes where building structures can be optimized with materials that possess ideal specific heat capacities in order to carry out tasks that would be disposed to reduce any fut ure risks of unexpected breakage, impairment, or deterioration when allowable stress or strain is exceeded due to materials that have not been properly assessed in terms of heat capacity. Through the First Law of Thermodynamics which is mathematically stated by – ?U = Q + W we gain fuller comprehension of how energy is conserved as heat and work, being each a form of energy, becomes a sum equivalent to the internal energy of a system in a material dealt with. In materials used for construction such as metal, concrete, glass, sand, or gravel, the stresses which any of these can either bear or not are altogether identified via heat (Q) and work (W) in and out of the system. Thus, considering the sensible ‘Q’ property, especially one that deals with temperature change, specific heat serves a critical tool that partly enables an engineering professional to decide which materials make an exquisite choice. Eventually, a calorimetric approach of determining an objectâ⠂¬â„¢s specific heat, if initially unknown in literature, turns out to be an interesting piece of endeavour. In this regard, a thermodynamic process can be improvised for analysing specific heats of commonly utilized construction materials (as metal and sand) in a comprehensive and systematic simple experimental procedure. Determination of Specific Heat of Metal and of Sand Problem Statement / Purpose Determination of specific heats of certain materials can be carried out in a basic setting in which only heating and measuring temperature are the only tasks involved on the assumption that the value of the heat or energy used is derived from a power input typically in Watts or J/s. The objective of the experiment is to find out the specific heats of metal and sand, respectively, by having each substance reach a certain temperature when on heating. Each heated substance would be placed in a calorimeter containing water (independent setup for each of metal and sand) where temperature ch ange of water would be monitored under time intervals until it stabilizes to a maximum equilibrium temperature. Background The specific heat of any material determines the amount of