Temperature decay experiment (E005)

In this experiment we will calculate and understand the decay value of the temperature of a cup of hot water.

This time we will start with the following setting: "we have a clay cup of hot water and we know that it's initial temperature was 71 C and that after 15 minutes its temperature will be 54 C, the temperature of the room is 21 C, calculate the decay rate K".

Equipment:

- Specific software installed on computer for measuring the temperature the cup and generate a graph

- Clay cup, paper cup

- hot water

- Paper and pen

Execution:

Thanks to the formula K= {ln^(Tt/To)} / t we will calculate K with the original temperature subtracted by the room temperature.

K = {ln^(33 / 50)} / 900 seconds = .00046 = decay coefficient of clay cup.

For the paper cup, which loses its warmth faster, the decay is .00056 according to our calculations.

Conclusions:

We can notice that the higher is the decay the faster the examined object will lose its warmth, in fact the paper cup tends to lose its warmth more easily than clay cups.