Simon Donnaway, Robbie Patla, Taylor Gretz

Testing the Different Burn Temperatures of Wood

Abstract

Our motivation for this experiment was that we wanted to see what the longest burning
wood and produced the most heat. We wanted to find this out so if needed, you could find the
wood that would be the longest burning and emit the most heat. Our research was prompted by
finding wood that is fairly common in colorado and seeing which one would have the longest
burn time and emit the most heat. Our research question was what would will emit the most
heat. Our results were what we hypothesized, the oak had the highest burn temperature.

Introduction

The reason we wanted to test this was to see if the different densities of the different
types of wood will affect the burn temperature. Even though we have the same lengths of wood
there was a difference in density. Poplar had a density of .35 kg, oak had a density of .9 kg, and
alder had a density of .7 kg. We are doing this experiment to test what type of wood will produce
the most heat. The heat can come from a lot of things including, match, bow drill with friction,
and lighter. In this case we used a lighter. When wood reaches about 300 degrees, heat
decomposes some of the material from the wood. We decided to do this experiment because
we wanted to know what wood would be the warmest and be able to heat up water the most
efficiently. This would help survival because you would be able to choose the wood that would
produce the most heat. Some things that we thought could impact the results included the
density of different types of wood. Our experimental design was to use a aluminum can filled
with water to see how much heat is transferred to get the energy content of the wood.

Question and Hypothesis

Our question was; What wood will emit the most heat? We thought that the oak would
have the highest energy content because of how dense it is compared the the Poplar and Alder
wood. In this experiment our independent variable was the type of wood burned while the
dependant was the temperature of the water

Methods and Materials

To do this experiment we used 3 feet of poplar, alder, and oak wood. We also needed a
fire pit, thermocoupler, cup of rubbing alcohol. We cut the wood into small slivers and lit the
fire. Then we kept recording the temperature of the water throughout the experiment. The
independent variable throughout this experiment included the different types of wood while the
dependant was the temperature of the water. First we chose a type of wood, then cut it into 1
foot long, and 1cm wide pieces allowing them to light faster. Then we used cup of lighter fluid
to light the fire. After the fire was lit we added the can with the water. We checked the
temperature of the fire itself using a thermocouple every 30 seconds through the burn time. We
recorded the highest burn temperature and found the change in the water temperature.

Results
Types of Burn Temp Can weight initial water Water temp
Wood Of Wood before water Mass of water temp. after fire Burn Time

Poplar 543 16.64 173.36 9.9 C 73.7 C 6:44 sec

Alder 523 16.64 135.66 12 C 100 C 5:35 sec

Oak 381 16.64 306.57 10.6 C 42 C 8:44 sec

Discussion

The Experiment was done to test which different types of wood had the highest burn
temperature and which burnt the longest. The types of wood we chose to burn were Poplar,
Oak, and Alder wood. The results were based off of the burn time and energy content in the
types of wood. We are confident in our results. Our hypothesis was correct the oak did have the
highest burn temperature, because it is a more dense wood than the rest.
Our results will help people know what type of wood is most worth their time. Some
variables that could have affected the outcome of the experiment included the amount of
rubbing alcohol used, the outside temperature something we could have recorded, and the
different cans we used. Some improvements that the experiment could use include lighting the
fire in a controlled temperature, using the same container to hold the water, something more like
a glass measuring cup, and being more precise on the amount of rubbing alcohol by making
sure none of the excess got into the fire pit. Some further experimentation could include getting
the actual energy content. To do this you could use smaller samples of the wood weighing them
before and after they burn to get the energy per gram. You could also test the wood by weight
and not by size and see if that changes the outcomes.