Solar Heater - Will
Solar Heater - Will from Josh Williams
Solar Heater - Will

Mechanical engineering students at Iowa State participate in a major design class during their sophomore years. The goal of the design projects is to create a sustainable, simple, usable design to improve living conditions for a targeted third-world country. Throughout the fall 2011 semester, our team members began discovering their strengths and passions. We geared our project planning to utilize these developing strengths. We assigned a CAD master, team planner, communications specialist, research lead, and construction lead. Together we developed a clear project goal that was a little different than those typically developed. We decided to focus on poverty in our local region and focused on energy costs in Des Moines, Iowa. Our solar heater was planned and developed throughout the fall 2011 semester and was tested in November and wrapped up in December. The project was deemed a success by our team and even received the second most votes from our sophomore peers for best project.

The natural air convection theory that our solar heater is based on. Natural convection is the motion of a fluid caused solely by temperature gradients: hot air rises in this case.
This bill of materials includes an exploded view to show all the components of our solar heater design. This drawing is based on models our team created using the SolidWorks CAD package.
The first model that we constructed and tested included unpainted aluminum cans as the means of absorbing solar energy.
Our team enjoyed seeing the design come to life and testing outside of Hoover Hall on the ISU campus.
All aspects of the project included the entire team. Everyone took responsibility for the successes and failures of the solar heater. Team members included myself, Kevin Mann, Rob Polinchock, Ryan Wiest, and Li Osman.
After testing the solar heater with unpainted aluminum cans, the team decided to try painting the cans black in hopes of increasing heat absorption.
Due to the project and semester schedules, we were not able to test the designs until November. The weather during November in Iowa can get pretty chilly, but these are the conditions under which the solar heater would actually be used. This photo shows the conditions of one of our final testing days.
Despite the chilly November weather and cloudy skies the solar heater was able to produce very warm output temperatures. (80.6 degrees Fahrenheit)
And these output temperatures continued to rise throughout testing. (110.0 degrees Fahrenheit)
This graph provides a summary of testing data for three testing sessions. Our team was very happy with these results and the maximum output temperature achieved exceeded everyone's expectations.
Our Design Expo poster summarizes an entire semester's worth of work. It includes customer requirements, specifications and benchmarking metrics, an engineering model, morphological charts for brainstorming, profitability analysis and final design results.
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Solar Heater - Will

Mechanical engineering students at Iowa State participate in a major design class during their sophomore years. The goal of the design projects is to create a sustainable, simple, usable design to improve living conditions for a targeted third-world country. Throughout the fall 2011 semester, our team members began discovering their strengths and passions. We geared our project planning to utilize these developing strengths. We assigned a CAD master, team planner, communications specialist, research lead, and construction lead. Together we developed a clear project goal that was a little different than those typically developed. We decided to focus on poverty in our local region and focused on energy costs in Des Moines, Iowa. Our solar heater was planned and developed throughout the fall 2011 semester and was tested in November and wrapped up in December. The project was deemed a success by our team and even received the second most votes from our sophomore peers for best project.

Josh Williams
Ames, IA