Hot Air Balloon
10-26-12
3RD Block
Mrs. Sneed
Hot Air Balloon Report Hot air balloons fill up slowly and then rise in the sky. Two important principles of physics: the ideal gas law and Archimedes’ principle are the reasons hot air balloons fly. The mathematical relationship between the volume pressure and the temperature of a gas is called the ideal gas law. When a gas is heated, as in a hot air balloon, then its volume will increase. However, there is a heater located in the balloon's basket that heats the air inside the balloon and blows hot air into the balloon. As the volume of gas increases, it fills the balloon. As soon as the balloon is full of hot air, if the air continues to heat up, it expands and flows out of the hole in the bottom of the balloon. A balloon that filled with hot air contains fewer air molecules than the same balloon inflated to the same size with cool air. A hot air balloon will therefore be less dense than a balloon filled with cool air as a result of the ideal gas law. If I had better research on how to make a hot air balloon would my project have worked a lot better? The answer to that question is yes. My project that was in my mind was a good idea but didn’t work how I thought it would. If I would have just took the time to look into how to make a good hot air balloon I think it would have made a perfect one. The materials I used were a newspaper, plastic bag, yarn, and cardboard all these proved to be very useless. Thinking it would be very light and efficient I didn’t think twice about studying the do’s and do not’s of building a hot air balloon. My first trial of my balloon also did not go as I plan. I decided using a tea candle would work much better than a birthday candle because if I glued down the tea candle it would stay in –place and I wouldn’t have to worry about the candle moving. Instead of staying still something else started to propose a problem and that seemed to be the yarn. Every time it had a chance of getting off the
3RD Block
Mrs. Sneed
Hot Air Balloon Report Hot air balloons fill up slowly and then rise in the sky. Two important principles of physics: the ideal gas law and Archimedes’ principle are the reasons hot air balloons fly. The mathematical relationship between the volume pressure and the temperature of a gas is called the ideal gas law. When a gas is heated, as in a hot air balloon, then its volume will increase. However, there is a heater located in the balloon's basket that heats the air inside the balloon and blows hot air into the balloon. As the volume of gas increases, it fills the balloon. As soon as the balloon is full of hot air, if the air continues to heat up, it expands and flows out of the hole in the bottom of the balloon. A balloon that filled with hot air contains fewer air molecules than the same balloon inflated to the same size with cool air. A hot air balloon will therefore be less dense than a balloon filled with cool air as a result of the ideal gas law. If I had better research on how to make a hot air balloon would my project have worked a lot better? The answer to that question is yes. My project that was in my mind was a good idea but didn’t work how I thought it would. If I would have just took the time to look into how to make a good hot air balloon I think it would have made a perfect one. The materials I used were a newspaper, plastic bag, yarn, and cardboard all these proved to be very useless. Thinking it would be very light and efficient I didn’t think twice about studying the do’s and do not’s of building a hot air balloon. My first trial of my balloon also did not go as I plan. I decided using a tea candle would work much better than a birthday candle because if I glued down the tea candle it would stay in –place and I wouldn’t have to worry about the candle moving. Instead of staying still something else started to propose a problem and that seemed to be the yarn. Every time it had a chance of getting off the