Development of Experiment Set for Study Newton’s Law of Cooling and Electrical Equivalent of Heat to Determine the Specific Heat Capacity of Vegetable Oil

Abstract

This research aims to develop an experimental setup for studying Newton’s law of cooling and the electrical equivalent of heat in determining the specific heat capacity of vegetable oil. To save time and reduce equipment procurement costs, the researcher used easily accessible and low-cost materials instead of purchasing a preassembled experimental kit. Vegetable oil was selected due to its non-reactivity with equipment, high stability and safety, and suitability for maintaining controlled experimental conditions effectively. The experiment was conducted by studying the cooling of equal volumes of water and vegetable oil in beakers of the same size, using known specific heat capacities of water and the beaker as references for calculation. In addition, the researcher employed the electrical equivalent of heat method by heating the vegetable oil using a resistor connected to a power supply and compared the results obtained from both methods. The developed experimental setup was applied in the Advanced Physics Laboratory course within the Physics program, Division of Physical Science, Faculty of Science. The research findings indicate that the developed setup can accurately determine the specific heat capacity of vegetable oil. The value obtained using Newton’s law of cooling was 3.156 J/g·K, while that obtained using the electrical equivalent of heat method was 3.119 J/g·K. The difference between the two values was only 1.2%, which aligns with the principles of Newton’s law of cooling and the electrical equivalent of heat. Moreover, the results from implementing the experimental setup in the advanced laboratory course showed that the effectiveness of the two methods differed significantly at the 0.05 statistical level.