Re: A bubble wall?

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Article #2358

#2358

From: Rick Matthews
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 00:00

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Andreas Haffner (andreas.haffner@matforsk.nlh.no) wrote:
: 
: Misunderstanding here, I think:
: 
: Before you had one large convection path
: 
: With the bubbles you have many small convection pathes and additionally many
: *conduction* pathes.

Forgive me if I am off-target, since I missed the initial post.  There
seems to be debate over whether filling walls with some sort of bubble
structure will improve insulation.  As long as the bubble surfaces are
thin, the answer is clearly yes.  Many small convection paths within
bubbles would have much lower net heat transport than one big cavity.
The smaller the bubbles, the more effective the material.

After all, that is what styrofoam is.

Consider fiberglass.  Fiberglass itself is a relatively poor
insulator.  Fiberglass insulation (such as the Pink Panther stuff), on
the other hand, is mostly air.  The principal purpose of the
fiberglass in fiberglass insulation is to disrupt convection currents.
It breaks the big cavity up into lots of tiny ones.  Reduction in
radiative transport because of the many layers is also important.

-- 
Rick Matthews                             matthews@wfu.edu       
Department of Physics                     http://www.wfu.edu/%7Ematthews 
Wake Forest University                    910-759-5340   (Voice)
Winston-Salem, NC 27109-7507              910-759-6142   (FAX)
USA

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From: matthews@wfu.edu (Rick Matthews)
Subject: Re: A bubble wall?
Date: 1996/04/25
Message-ID: <4lnpps$dpl@eis.wfunet.wfu.edu>
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