Serious.. Everyone Read This Thread And Put In An Idea!

**needmorestrength** · 09-07-2005, 05:38 PM

Ok today at school we had to build a "solar" oven. The goal is to head an object in the oven as best as possible, relying on the personal design, and also the object selected! The oven will have about an hour to sit in the sun.. What object would heat up and hold its heat the best???
thanx

**symatech** · 09-07-2005, 05:42 PM

To find the optimal choice I'd select a list of things available to you, then look up their correspsonding specific heats. Speficic heat is the amount of heat that must be taken in or lost for 1g of X substance to change it's temp by 1 degree C. Water has a high speficic heat, meaning it takes it awhile to gain heat and to loose it. That's why the desert gets so cold at night and hot during the day, no water to maintain the temp.

Since you only have 1hr, you must find something that will heat up enough in your oven, yet still maintain it's heat the best.

Any idea on how hot your oven will get? This will better help select a suitable substance to put it in.

**needmorestrength** · 09-07-2005, 05:59 PM

prolly around 120ish
the teacher said his was 135ish.
We will hook up an electronic probe to determine the heat. I was thinking something copper

**PaRiS2005** · 09-07-2005, 06:21 PM

I was watching something similar to this on The Food Network a couple of weeks ago. The man had a solar grill. I think it was either made of steel or aluminum...I can't really recall though.

**symatech** · 09-07-2005, 06:34 PM

Cu has a low specific heat so it will heat up very quickly, if you have access to gold or lead both have lower SH than Cu so they will get even hotter. Are you more interested in getting something the hottest or having it retain the heat it gets?

**needmorestrength** · 09-07-2005, 06:36 PM

Well there should be a constant supply of heat for the hour, so I guess what ever gets the hottset

**MASTER** · 09-07-2005, 06:40 PM

tarmac seems to hold heat too well 4 my likin, eva tried walkin on a tarmac promenade barefoot in the summer - ouchies!!

**symatech** · 09-07-2005, 06:43 PM

Then your best bet is something made of gold, or lead. Unless you by chance have access to bismuth or tungsten. In order of best choices as I see it: Bi > Au > Pb > W > Hg > Brass > Cu > Zn

brass and copper would be about the same so go in that order from what will get the hottest to what will not get as hot

**needmorestrength** · 09-07-2005, 06:56 PM

Originally Posted by symatech

Then your best bet is something made of gold, or lead. Unless you by chance have access to bismuth or tungsten. In order of best choices as I see it: Bi > Au > Pb > W > Hg > Brass > Cu > Zn

brass and copper would be about the same so go in that order from what will get the hottest to what will not get as hot

Is tungston whats in a lightbulb?

**Jdawg50** · 09-07-2005, 06:58 PM

Go to food network, and seach "alton brown" He would probably have something on this.

**symatech** · 09-07-2005, 07:00 PM

Originally Posted by needmorestrength

Is tungston whats in a lightbulb?

yes tungsten is what the filament of a light bulb is made out of. You could use one but the amount of filament in a lightbulb is very small. Is there a minimum mass required?