This week Karla and I started doing our pre-lab for an experiment we are going to be running. The experiment will involve analyzing the aluminum coated plastic in order to determine the measured resistivity. Using this resistivity value we can determine its conductivity.
Our approach will involve 10 cutouts of the aluminum material at different lengths for a constant width. We will first attempt to measure the resistance using an Ohmmeter while taking into account contact resistance.We will then attempt to validate these results by using the traces to build a simple circuit (constant valued battery and resistor). This circuit will give us the power dissitaped by the resistor and we can then compare if this value is the same as that of the power supplied by the battery, however, we of course expect that it will not be. Using this setup, our goal is to be able to come up with a resistivity value per cm squared for the aluminum material.
We will also be analyzing basic physical properties of the material such as what happens when it is folded, etc.