Abstract:

It is well known the importance of laboratory sessions in engineering education. Heat transfer is a fundamental topic in mechanical engineering and consequently, equipment for laboratory practice is widely developed. Nevertheless, educational commercial equipment is usually sold with lack of technical information. In order to teach students how to solve this problem, we show them a practical case concerning typical equipment for measuring the radiant intensity of a black body and how to calibrate it in order to obtain additional experimental data not proposed by the manufacturer. To illustrate this process, we show how to calculate the Stefan–Boltzmann constant via determining the efficiency of the Moll’s thermopile and the estimation of the measuring surface area. A description of the equipment used and the method of testing are presented together with experimental results obtained. Objectives and competences acquired by students during this experimental work are summarized. Finally, some conclusions related to the teaching methodology are drawn.

Keywords:

Stefan-Boltzmann law, engineering education, thermal radiation, thermopile efficiency.