User:Chong Tian Lin/ENES-100/Project 3

My Instructor's course page which points to this.

Project Preference
I chose to work on the Water Beads Demo Project.

Problem Statement
We are asked to experiment with the various properties of the water bead (polyacrylamide) and its material composition to generate a presentable demonstration that shows the limitations of the material and its useful applications in real life.

Week 1 Narrative
Water beads are composed of an extremely water-absorbent synthetic material know as polyacrylamide. In order to maximize the efficiency of this property, the water temperature is investigated. In this past week, an experiment was conducted to determine the effect of temperature on the absorption of water beads.



Initial dry water bead diameter: 0.2 cm

All beads were tested:
 * under same environmental conditions
 * using the same water source
 * using the same plastic cup
 * using same ruler and thermometer to measure diameter and temperature respectively
 * using the same amount of water (1/4 cup)
 * with a plastic wrap covered cup to prevent water evaporation

Trail #1

Trail #2

Trail #3

Average diameter of bead from hot water after 25 min: 0.87 cm

Average diameter of bead from moderate water after 25 min: 0.82 cm

Average diameter of bead from cold water after 25 min: 0.79 cm

From the data collected in the trials and the average diameters, the hot water clearly allowed for more water to be absorbed by the water beads, resulting in a larger diameter of the bead itself. This means that a higher water temperature will generally speed up the water absorption process of water beads than lower water temperatures.

Next Steps

 * Refine the data that measures water more accurately such as measuring mass of beads rather than diameter
 * Test further properties of water beads such as the evaporation of the beads in different environments

Week 2 Narrative
During this week, the rate of evaporation was examined in different environments and the change in diameter of each bead were recorded.

Environmentsː

Within the same amount of time period, the bead under direct sunlight evaporated the most amount of water while the bead in the drawer evaporated the least amount of water. Sunlight is composed of heat and light radiation from the sun meaning that a combined transfer of heat and light energy is the fastest catalyst for water evaporation. A dehumidifier lowers the surrounding humidity level and allows the air be able to hold more moisture from the evaporation of the water bead and allows a moderate evaporation rate. The drawer creates an area with no light or heat radiation at a normal room temperature and humidity. This setup has proven as the slowest scenario for water evaporation.

Next Step

 * Determine the best way to evaporate/dry powdered water beads
 * Come up with 3 different hinge designs
 * Create a CAD technical drawing of a mop hinge as an application of the water absorption of water breads

Week 3 Narrative
During this week, trials of an experiment were conducted to determine the time necessary to allow 3 water beads to dry as opposed to the time necessary for an equivalent amount of shredded and mashed water bead pieces to dry. The water beads were initially cut by scissors and then grinded with rocks on a cement rough surface to increase surface area exposed by the surrounding air. 3 beads are used in each variable to minimize lurking variables such as a defect water bead that has a slightly higher density polymer structure than it is meant to be.

Mass of Styrofoam plateː 9 grams













Trial 1

Trial 2

Trial 3

The shredded water beads had more total surface area in contact with the surrounding air that caused a greater evaporation rate. This is evident from the data resulted from the trails above as the time it took the shredded beads to dry out is noticeably less than that of the time took for the regular beads to dry out.

Next Steps

 * Develop improvement designs for the mop hinge
 * Create a method to integrate water beads securely into a mop
 * Implement existing results and data to maximize the water absorption on the next mop prototype

Week 4 Narrative
During this last week, a few designs were formulated of a mop application for water beads and produce technical drawings for the most effective one on Autodesk Inventor.

Animation of Mop Hinge at work

Next Step

 * Construct prototype of the mop structure
 * Determine what material is most cost effective and appropriate to form the shell that houses the water bead shreds