Heat Transfer Conduction, Convection, and Radiation

Heat Transfer is the study of the rates of thermal energy motion. There are three modes of Heat Transfer:
Conduction, Convection, and Radiation. Conduction is concerned with the transfer of thermal energy
through a material without bulk motion of the material. This phenomenon is fundamentally a diffusion
process that occurs at the microscopic level. Convection is concerned with the transfer of thermal energy
in a moving fluid (liuid or gas!. Convection is characteri"ed by two physical principles, conduction
(diffusion! and bulk fluid motion (advection!. The bulk fluid motion can be caused by an e#ternal force,
for e#ample, a fan, or may be due to buoyancy effects. $inally, Radiation is the transfer of thermal energy
through electro%magnetic waves (or photons!. &t is interesting to note that Radiation reuires no medium.
Conduction
Conduction is the diffusion of thermal energy, i.e., the movement of thermal energy from regions of
higher temperature to regions of lower temperature. 'n a microscopic level, this occurs due to the passing
energy through molecular vibrations.
Heat flu# is denoted as . The units of heat flu# are watts. &t should be noted that heat flu# is a vector
uantity. &t is often convenient to describe heat flu# in terms of the geometry being studied. Thus we
define , , and as the heat flu# per unit length, area, and volume, respectively.
The governing rate euation for conduction is given by $ourier(s )aw. $or one dimension, $ourier(s law is
e#pressed as:
*here x is the direction of interest, k is a proportionality constant known as thermal conductivity and
is the temperature gradient at the location of interest. The negative sign indicates that heat is
transferred in the direction of decreasing temperature.
The thermal conductivity is a measure of how readily a material conducts heat. +aterials with high
conductivity, such as metals, will readily conduct heat even at low temperature gradients. +aterials with
low conductivity, such as asbestos, will resist heat transfer and are often referred to as insulators.
Convection
Convection is the transfer of thermal energy between a solid and a moving fluid. &f the fluid is not in
motion, the problem can be classified as Conduction. Convection is governed by two phenomenon. The
movement of energy due to molecular vibrations and bulk fluid motion. &n general, Convection is of two
types, $orced Convection and $ree Convection.
$orced Convection occurs when a fluid is forced to flow. $or e#ample, a fan blowing air over a heat
e#changer is an e#ample of $orced Convection. &n $ree Convection, the bulk fluid motion is due to
buoyancy effects. $or e#ample, a vertical heated plate surrounded by uiescent air causes the air
surrounding it to be heated. ,ecause hot air has a lower density than cold air, the hot air rises. The void is
filled by cold air and the cycle continues.
The governing rate euation for Convection is given by -ewton(s )aw of Cooling:
where h is the heat transfer coefficient, T is the temperature of the solid surface, and is the
temperature of the fluid far from the surface. This e#pression, in spite of its name, is not law. Rather, it is
an empirical e#pression of proportionality of the heat flu# and the temperature difference between the
solid and the fluid. The heat transfer coefficient is typically determined by e#periment. Correlations for
heat transfer coefficient for various kinds of flows are have been determined and are documented in
literature.
Radiation
Radiation is the transfer of thermal energy between two ob.ects through electro%magnetic waves. /nlike
conduction and convection, radiation does not reuire a medium. &n general, gasses do not take part in
radiation heat transfer.
Radiation is based on the fact that all ob.ects of finite temperature, i.e. not absolute "ero, emit radiation in
the form of electro%magnetic waves. These waves travel until they impinge another ob.ect. The second
ob.ect in turn either absorbs or reflects the energy. &t should be noted that if the second ob.ect is of a finite
temperature, it is also emitting radiation.
Conduction
The Plane Wall
Heat transfer through a wall is a one dimensional conduction problem where temperature is a function of
the distance from one of the wall surfaces. &t is assumed that the rest of the surfaces of the walls are at a
constant temperature. Heat transfer from the surfaces of the wall takes place through convection by the
surrounding air, which causes them to have steady state temperatures of T
0
and T
1
on their surfaces. )et us
assume that the fluid on the side of the wall with temperature T
0
is at and has a heat transfer
coefficient h
0
, and that on the side of the wall with temperature T
1
is at with heat transfer
coefficient h
1
, and that . The assumption implies that . 2ince the wall does
not store any heat energy, all the heat from the hotter surface is conducted to the cooler surface.
Conservation of energy dictates that
for a body which generates no heat nor stores any heat. 3pplying the same to the 0%4 case with the
direction of the #%a#is normal to the wall surface, we get
'n solving and putting the appropriate boundary conditions, (3t #56, T 5 T
0
and at #5), T 5 T
1
! we get a
linear variation for T within the wall thickness.
&t is evident from the euation that the temperature profile within the wall varies linearly with the distance
from the surfaces. 2ince we have the temperature variation, the conduction rate can be calculated from
$ourier(s )aw.
&t can be seen from the above euation that the heat flu# is independent of # and are constants. This
e#ample shows the standard method of solving a conduction problem. $irst, the temperature profile
within the body is found using the euation for conservation of energy and the temperature euation is
used to solve for the heat flu# by plugging it into the $ourier(s )aw euation.
&n general, we would like to have a material with very low conductivity which is able to withstand great
temperatures to build furnaces. &n practice, we find that high temperature materials have relatively high
thermal conductivity. Thus, furnaces are constructed from several layers, each of a different material. *e
can use the thermal breakdown temperatures of each material to find the optimum thickness so that the
heat loss is minimal. &t is easy to see that each material should receive heat at its thermal breakdown
temperature and re.ect heat at the thermal breakdown temperature of the ad.acent material.