From: Patrick Salsbury (salsbury_at_sculptors.com)
Date: 03/21/00
Message-Id: <200003211035.CAA18243@bootstrap.sculptors.com> Subject: Re: ball connection, and list archives Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 02:35:20 -0800 From: Patrick Salsbury <salsbury_at_sculptors.com>
> > |if they were insulated correctly (i.e. probably aerogels), they
> > could work.
> >
> > What is (are?) aerogel? Where can I find more about that?
>
> Aerogels are a (relatively) new material which weighs less than
> the air it contains. It can be thought of as a super-low-density
> gelatin matrix, from which all liquid has been removed.
>
> In fact, one of the original aerogels was made with Jello and
> alcohol as the liquid. Since the alcohol would evaporate out,
> the remaining gel matrix was made of mostly "nothing." It's
> actually possible to make an aerogel that is lighter than air.
>
> Its a favorite "high tech" material for insulating -- hopefully in
> time it can be made totally clear, and used for insulating
> windows.
>
> -- Chuck Knight
Aerogel is almost, but not quite, lighter than air. I think
the lightest sample I've seen sighted is about 3x the density of air,
weighing in at something like .0003gm/cm^3
(If it was lighter than air, it would float! That'd be cool,
but I've not heard of it happening.)
One other think about aerogel is that you can suck the air
out from the inner portion, and your insulating factor goes WAY up.
Standard aerogels have an insulating factor of about R20 per
inch. (R1 = 1 pane of glass) When you draw out the air in the aerogel
(making it a vacugel? :-) ) it goes up to about R32 per inch. For
comparison, the Real Goods Solar Living Center in Ukiah, CA has a
straw-bale construction building. The walls are 27 inches thick, and
covered with a sort of mud/adobe coating. They have an insulating
factor of R67, which is fantastic. It could also be done with about
2" of vacuumed aerogel, sealed between two panes of glass, and it
would still allow all sorts of light through.
There's oodles of info at http://www.aerogels.com/ (I think
that's the right URL, I'm offline at the moment and can't check.) and
I have another link which points to
http://eande.lbl.gov/ECS/aerogels/satoc.htm
If that doesn't work straight out, try backing up a level or
two.
I also have two great pictures, taken from one of those
sites. You can find them here:
http://reality.sculptors.com/~salsbury/Gifs/Aerogel.flame.gif
http://reality.sculptors.com/~salsbury/Gifs/Aerogel.flower.jpg
I think those adequately demonstrate the ability of aerogel
to insulate against heat transfer. :-)
Pat
