Determination of the Specific Heat of a Liquid by the Method of Cooling

                                           Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Maritime University [pic 1]

LAB REPORT

Course no. : OCN1108                          Group no.: 02

Experiment number: 02

Experiment name: Determination of the specific heat of a

                              liquid by the method of cooling.

Date of performance: 16/1/2017

Date of submission: __/__/2017

Submitted by:

Name:  Sheikh Fahim Faysal Sowrav

Roll no: 16311004

Registration No: 2301121600004

Semester 1

Department of Oceanography

Abstract:

One of the techniques for the determination of the specific heat of liquids uses the Newton's law of cooling for the analysis of the experimental data instead of the usual calorimeter method. The success of this technique depends on the possibility in determining the temperatures of the system immediately before and after the internal heat transfer due to the immersion of the sample (whose specific heat I want to measure) with small uncertainties in a container filled with hot water. In this paper a refinement of this technique is proposed using two curve fittings for the function that describes the law of cooling and small extrapolations to determine those temperatures, as well their uncertainties.[2] In this experiment, the specific heat of an unknown liquid is 0.852 joule per kg per °C with an error of 65.76%. This allows determining not only the value of the specific heat, but also the uncertainty of this value by error propagation.

Introduction:

Specific heat capacity is the amount of heat energy required to raise the temperature of a substance per unit of mass. The specific heat capacity of a material is a physical property. It is also an example of an extensive property, since its value is proportional to the size of the system being examined. Newton's law of cooling states that the rate of heat loss of a body is proportional to the difference in temperatures between the body and its surroundings.[1] As such, it is equivalent to a statement that the heat transfer coefficient, which mediates between heat losses and temperature differences, is a constant. We have done the experiment for the determination of the specific heat of a liquid by the method of cooling.[3]