I’ve been looking into brick oven design, and the dome shape is motivated for two reasons: (1) “Retains heat efficiently,” and (2) “Reflects heat evenly”.
I’m confused about both of these things, since I’d expect the bricks (not air) to be primarily “storing” the heat, and because I have no idea what it means to “reflect heat,” let alone evenly. Any explanation would be really helpful.
A related question is basically, “why couldn’t a brick oven just be a short and wide rectangular prism?” More like a conventional oven. Why is the dome shape thought to be needed.
Thank you.
In: Physics
The shape of an object greatly determines how it retains heat. Specifically, you want to look at the surface-area to volume ratio: an object with a high surface-area to volume ratio loses heat more quickly than one with a low surface-area to volume ratio.
It turns out that structure will the lowest possible surface-area to volume ratio is a dome. So, that’s the shape you want your oven to be.
Latest Answers