Determination of the Optimum Thickness of Approximately Cylindrical Top Spherical Frustrum Aluminium Cast Pot

Abstract

In an attempt to conserve the world’s scarce energy and material resources, a balance between the cost of heating a material and the optimum thickness of the material becomes vey essential. One of such materials is the local cast aluminium pot commonly used as cooking ware in Nigeria. This paper therefore sets up a model that relates the thickness of a pot with the cost of heating it. The model is then computer simulated to determine the variation of heating cost with pot’s thickness. The result shows an optimum thickness of 0.064 m for a pot of volume 2.405×10^-5 m³. This is the thickness at which the cost of heating the material is cheapest, without an adverse effect on the thermal conductivity of the material. Above or below this thickness, the cost of heating is high making such thicknesses uneconomical. So, 0.064 m is the recommended optimum thickness for a pot of 2.405×10^-5 m³ capacity for the makers of cook ware. The optimum thickness for a different volume of pot can also be obtained from the model when computer simulated.

Keywords: Cost of heating, optimum thickness, cast aluminium, computer simulation