Sounds like fun Henk. Most here are well outside the normal realm and your experiment plan proves it for you as well. Those trained as engineers think they can predict the behavior of physical systems without experiments based on modeling. Engineers are sometimes wrong. I will be interested to hear your results.

Dave- that's a good idea on one large pad folded over- like it :)

Mike

I've followed this topic through several threads over two years or so. I'm leaving myself vulnerable here but: I've always thought that ground convection was by far the greatest factor in heat loss for pads. My experience certainly points to this. So: put the ccf pad under the airmat. Inhibit the ground convection. I own a synmat 7 ul; perhaps the loss of heat from the sides is greater than I picture because of the thickness of the mat. But come on: without a ccf pad the whole of the mat is resting on the cold cold ground.

Go easy on me if I'm simply not grasping basic principles here; although I do read and understand Brian Greene (Platonist)and other science writers; but I certainly don't have the math. (And there's nothing wrong with being a Platonist.)

Edited by hegel1 on 11/11/2011 20:56:47 MST.

It sounds like the insulative value should be the same for airmat on top of CCF and airmat underneath CCF once the mats have been warmed by your body heat. I wonder, however, if putting the CCF, which has relatively little mass to warm up, on top gets you to the perception of warmth faster than putting the airmat on top, which has a greater mass to warm.