how do igloos work ? And if you have fire inside wont it melt ? Do you have to build anotherone everytime?
In: Engineering
Snow is a reflector and an insulator. Because it is a reflector it won’t melt very easily, much like ice.
Igloos, like all shelters, work like a giant jacket, trapping heat and minimizing wind currents. If a fire is lit within an igloo, the dome moves the fumes to the very top of the structure, where it is then diffused. Hopefully.
Igloos act as very rigid insulators, or in other words they keep the heat in. Generally the fire of an igloo is hot enough to melt the ice, but it doesnt produce enough thermal (heat) energy to keep the ice in a liquid form for long amd the heat absorbed by the innermost layer gets distributed within the dense ice walls of the igloo. Additionally that innermost layer may thaw and refreeze back into an icy layer, which changes the crystal structure to be more rigid also better at redistributing the heat given to it. In general though you dont build a fire in an igloo unless you have a hole in the top. The heat energy from fire radiates out in all directions, but primarily moves up (the reason we generally cook over a fire and not beside it), this way most the heat moves through the hole in the top and disperses into the air around the igloo
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