How to Measure the Electrical Resistance of a House Brick?

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Homework Help Overview

The discussion revolves around designing an experiment to measure the electrical resistance of a house brick at temperatures ranging from 20 to 800 degrees Celsius. Participants explore the challenges and considerations involved in such an experiment.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory, Assumption checking, Conceptual clarification

Approaches and Questions Raised

  • Participants discuss the need for high voltage to measure current and the importance of determining the brick's resistance beforehand. Questions arise about initial testing methods and how to relate temperature changes to electrical power. There is also a suggestion to heat the brick to lower temperatures for safety and extrapolate data.

Discussion Status

Some participants have offered guidance on measuring current and temperature, while others have raised safety concerns regarding high temperatures. Multiple approaches to the experiment are being explored, including initial tests and alternative methods for data extrapolation.

Contextual Notes

There are concerns about the safety of heating the brick to high temperatures, and the discussion includes considerations for using conductive paint to connect wires to the brick.

jkl34
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Will somebody please help me i'v got to design an experiment to test the electrical resistance of a house brick between 20 and 800oc, and i don't know where to start or look :cry: all i know is that wires can be connected to the brick by the use of conductive paint
 
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jkl34 said:
Will somebody please help me i'v got to design an experiment to test the electrical resistance of a house brick between 20 and 800oc, and i don't know where to start or look :cry: all i know is that wires can be connected to the brick by the use of conductive paint
You will need a high voltage in order to get any current at all. The problem is that in order to determine the appropriate voltage, you need to know the order of magnitude of the resistance of the brick, so you need to do some initial tests with different voltages to determine that. How would you do that?

In order to measure current, I would suggest you consider measuring the rate of temperature change of the brick and relate that to the electrical power. You would have to determine the heat capacity of the brick first. How would you do those things?

To do it for different temperatures, you could just use the electrical power to heat the brick and measure the power consumption as a function of heat of the brick. With enough voltage you might be able to get it to 800 deg. C. Do you know how you could measure the heat energy of the brick? Have you used calorimeters?

AM
 
Heating the brick to 800 deg. C. would be too dangerous and you will have to take this into consideration for your plan. What you can do is heat the brick to a lower temperature, eg. 200 deg. C. and then draw a graph and extrapolate it out to the required temperatures.
 

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