ME213

Semester Project
Instructor: Dr. Bob
Section 2

Alex Sperlich
Danielle Renner
Carson Christy

Math Model of a Ceramic Heater

Table Of Contents

I.

Description of the System

II.

Operating Constraints/Parameters

III.

Schematic Sketch of the System

IV.

Flowchart of the Computer Code

V.

Historic Data

VI.

Analysis of Each Major Variable

VII.

Reaction to Random Inputs

VIII.

References

IX.

Main Code

X.

Example

Description of the System

The system we are showing here is a ceramic heater that was placed in a closed room. What
we wanted to model is how long it took the heater to heat the room to a certain average temperature.
We incorporated many variables like the windows, initial temperature and room size among many
others. The one we found that made the biggest change in the time it took the heat the room was, to no
surprise, the overall size of the room. Of course the larger the room is the larger the mass of air in the
room is and therefore it takes more energy to heat up a larger mass. This can be seen in first graph
shown in the Analysis of Each Major Variable section. Another notable input would be the total surface
area of the windows. This is due to when you are dealing with larger windows the more cold air flows
into the room as negative energy making it take longer to heat the room.

Operating Constraints/Parameters
Some maximum and minimum operating modes are the following. The initial temperature must
be below the desired temperature, otherwise there would be no reason to use a heater. The surface
area of the windows must be below the total surface area of the room. The room must be filled with air;
no other excess of other elements is allowed due to the change in the overall density. Make sure the
door is closed in the room so that air/energy does not flow in and out of the system. All windows have
blinds on them so that the suns radiation energy does not flow into the room. We are also assuming
there are no other bodies of heat in the room (Ex. Computer).

(Schematic and Flow Chart are on printed on the next two pages)

Historic Data
Many experiments have been done regarding heating up a room using a heater because this
information is generally very helpful when building any building that has a room and requires heat. But
for our simplified, model with much fewer inputs than the more experienced engineers models, not a lot
of historical data is available. One of the journals we referenced had 36 initial inputs compared to our 6
or 8 depending on how you measured your room size. The experiment lead by Kim Goethals from
Ghent University analyzed how a room was heated based on airflow and the convective heat flux. Each
wall was measured for certain outputs to understand how the heat traveled around the room and how
the outside temperatures including night cooling would affect how efficiently the heater worked. We did
not include a flux in outside temperature and assumed even air flow distribution to make our model,
which is not feasible in a real life situation. The experiment also factored in different wall floor and
ceiling materials, in which ours was not calculated. The final result from the experiment conducted at
Ghent University concluded that The results revealed that the air supply/exhaust configuration is
particularly important in case high ventilative flow rates are combined with (heterogeneously distributed)
thermal mass.

Analysis of Each Major Variable.

Left: Varying the rooms volume shows a linear response of the time to reach the desired temperature.
Right: Varying the temperature outside gives a linear variation in the time.

Left: Varying the temperature inside gives a curved relation which looks parabolic; we also see the Avg
Temp vs time changes shape as the inside temperature changes.
Right: Varying the surface area of the window gives a linear increase in final time.

Left: Varying the power output of the heat gives an exponential curve as time decreases with power
increase.
Right: Varying the final temperature of the room gives a parabolic response that gets bigger as the final
temperature is increased.

Reaction to Random Data

We tested the model by inputting randomly generated values for the initial temperature of the
room between 0 and 80 degrees F. The room size, heater power, window surface, and outside
temperature remained the same. The model operated as expected and we received a set of data that
fits our trend. For a hundred random values we got:

References
Kim Goethals, Marc Delghust, Gilles Flamant, Michel De Paepe, Arnold Janssens, Experimental investigation of
the impact of room/system design on mixed convection heat transfer, Energy and Buildings, Volume 49, June
2012, Pages 542-551, ISSN 0378-7788, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2012.03.017.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037877881200165X)
Keywords: Experiment; Design; Convective heat transfer; Mixed convection; Design; Convection correlations;
PASLINK

Adding Insulation to an Existing Home. (2015, April 27). Retrieved April 29, 2015, from
http://energy.gov/energysaver/articles/adding-insulation-existing-home
Honeywell HZ-435 EnergySmart Surround Ceramic Heater. (n.d.). Retrieved April 30, 2015, from
http://www.honeywellheatsavings.com/personal-heaters/buy-honeywell-heaters/honeywell-surround-heat-energysmart-ceramic-heater-hz-0435/
Glass Thickness. (n.d.). Retrieved April 30, 2015, from
http://www.dullesglassandmirror.com/residential/glass_thickness.asp

Main Program
clc;clear;
%Give Input values
choice=menu('Volume Input','Rectangular Room (H,W,L)','Known Volume');
if choice==1
H=input('Height of the room: ');
L=input('Length of the room: ');
W=input('Width of the room: ');
V=H*L*W;
else
V=input('Volume (ft^3): ');
end
T_o=input('What is the temp. outside? (Degrees F) ');
T_i=input('What is the temp. inside? (Degrees F) ');
P=input('What is the Power (W) output labeled on your heater? ');
W=input('What is the total surface area of the windows in the room? (ft^2) ');
T=input('What is the desired temp. of the room? (Degrees F)');
%Make Calculations
BTU_hr_h=P*3.412141633;
%BTU_hr_wall=
k=0;
for Temp=T_i:T;
k=k+1;
BTU_hr_w=@(temp) 0.34*W*(T_o-temp);
H_window=integral(BTU_hr_w,T_i,Temp);
Hwindow(k)=H_window;
end
Temp=T_i:T;
%curve fit to air density data
T1=[-40 -20 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100,...
120 140 160 180 200 300 400 500

750 1000 1500];

den=[2.939 2.805 2.683 2.626 2.571 2.519 2.469 2.420,...

2.373 2.329 2.286 2.244 2.204 2.128 2.057 1.990,...

1.928 1.870 1.624 1.435 1.285 1.020 0.845 0.629];

x=T1;y=den;
p3=polyfit(x,y,3);
%heat needed
density=polyval(p3,T_i);
mass=V*density;
Q=mass*0.241*(Temp-T_i); %BTU heat gain
Time=(Q-Hwindow)/BTU_hr_h;
plot(Time,Temp),xlabel('Time (hr)'),ylabel('Average Room Temperature (deg F)'),grid

Example of the Program

program input