Question 16.10: Insulation Boards for Houses You want to design a material t......
Insulation Boards for Houses
You want to design a material that can be used for making insulation boards that are approximately 4 ft wide and 8 ft tall. The material must provide good thermal insulation. What material would you choose?
Glasses tend to be good insulators of heat; however, they will be heavy, more expensive, and prone to fracture. Polymers are lightweight and can be produced inexpensively, and they can be good thermal insulators. We can use foamed polystyrene since the air contained in the beads adds significantly to their effectiveness as thermal insulators. For better mechanical properties, we may want to produce foams that have relatively high density (compared to foams that are used to make coffee cups). Finally, from a safety viewpoint, we want to be sure that some fire and flame retardants are added to the foams. Such panels are made using expanded polystyrene beads containing pentane. A molding process is used to make the foams. The sheets can be cut into the required sizes using a heated metal wire.