TRANSMISSION OF HEAT.

Heat energy can be transmitted by three methods

1.

Conduction

2.

Convection

3.

Radiation.
1. CONDUCTION.

Heat is transmitted by conduction when it passes from

the hotter to the colder parts of the medium material
without any movement of the medium itself and all
intermediate parts of the material being warmed in the
process.
e.g. Metal rod held at one end in a fire after a period
of time the top end becomes hot and all intermediate
parts also are warm.

A metal contains some free (conduction ) electrons

which are free to move through the material.
When an metal is heated these free electrons gain
kinetic energy and their speed is increased.
The higher energy electrons drift towards the cooler
parts of the material thereby increasing the average
kinetic energy and heating.
Recall that the kinetic energy of the electrons of the
material is proportional to the temperature of the
material.
Most metals are good conductors i.e they easily
transmit heat energy by conduction.
Bad conductors are called insulators i.e they do not
easily transmit heat by conduction e.g. wool, wood,
most liquids and gases.

THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY.
Thermal conductivity is defined as the Heat energy
flowing through a piece of material per second which
is 1m in length, 1 m2 in cross-sectional area and has a
temperature difference of 1oC between its ends.
Symbol

Q kA T2 T1

t
x

Where
Q =

Heat energy flowing through the material

Area of the material through which

the heat flows

T2

= Temperature at face 2 i.e the higher temp

T1

= Temperature at face 1 the lower temp

t =

time taken

length of the material through which

the heat flows

Thermal conductivity of the material

S.I. Units of k Rearranging the equation making k the

subject gives
Qx
tA T
Units are

Joules metre
Joules

seconds metre 2 Kelvin seconds metre Kelvin

Watts
metre Kelvin

Typical Values.
Substance

k (W/m K)

Copper

400

Lead

36

Steel

50

Glass

1.05

Polystyrene

0.035

The thermal conductivity of good conductors is a high

value e.g copper = 400 W /m oC
What does this value mean ?
The thermal conductivity of a good insulator is low
e.g. polystyrene = 0.035 W / m oC

Loss of heat by conduction is reduced by construction

of double walls with the space between them packed
with a substance with low conductivity ( insulator ).
This process is called LAGGING.

2. CONVECTION.
Convection in the most general terms refers to the
movement of molecules within fluids (i.e. liquids,
gases).

In fluids, convective heat transfer takes place through

both diffusion the random Brownian motion of
individual particles in the fluid and by advection, in
which matter or heat is transported by the larger-scale
motion of currents in the fluid.
Density is defined as mass per unit Volume. As the
fluid is heated the Volume increases, the mass is
constant therefore the density decreases.
Hot fluids are less dense than cold fluids and will rise
therefore convection currents (circular currents or
movement within a fluid) due to different densities of
the hotter and cooler parts are set up
When heat is transferred by the circulation of fluids
due to buoyancy from the density changes induced by
heating itself, then the process is known as free or
natural convective heat transfer.

How does a radiator heat an entire room? The key is

convection currents. The hot radiator sets up
convection currents that transfer thermal energy to the
rest of the room and eventually heat the entire room.
How do convection currents work?

The hot radiator warms the air that is closest to the

radiator. The warm air expands, becomes less dense
and rises to the top of the room. When the air reaches
the top of the room it is pushed sideways towards the
far wall by the more recently warmed air rising from
the radiator below. In this way warm air moves to the
other side of the room. Once on the other side of the
room the air drops down both because it has cooled a
little and because the air behind it continues to push on
it. The air then continues to circulate back to the
radiator and repeat the process.
By continuing to circulate, the convection current
transfers heat energy to the other side of the room and
heats the entire room. This process can work in any
fluid, whether a liquid or a gas. Because matter must
circulate for convection currents to transfer thermal
energy convection currents can not work in a solid.
However they can efficiently transfer heat in a fluid.
There are other examples of convection

Domestic heating system

With a convection circulation system set up, the hot
water storage tank gradually becomes filled with hot
water from the top downwards.

When hot water is run off, an equal volume from the

cold supply tank enters the hot storage tank at the
bottom. The whole system is thus kept constantly full
of water and no air can enter.

Convection currents in the atmosphere and in the

oceans are responsible for most meteorological
changes. Clouds are formed when convection currents
over the earth's surface carry warm, moist air upwards,
where it expands and cools. The Trade Winds are

formed when hot air over the equator rises and colder
air flows in to take its place.
Land and sea breezes.
Because water has a much higher specific heat
capacity that do sands or other crustal materials, for a
given amount of solar irradiation water temperature
will increase less than land temperature. Regardless of
temperature scale, during daytime, land temperatures
might change by tens of degrees, while water
temperature change by less than half a degree.
Conversely, water's high specific heat capacity
prevents rapid changes in water temperature at night
and thus, while land temperatures may plummet tens
of degrees, the water temperature remains relatively
stable. Moreover, the lower heat capacity of crustal
materials often allows them to cool below the nearby
water temperature.

Air above the respective land and water surfaces is

warmed or cooled by conduction with those surfaces.
During the day, the warmer land temperature results in
a warmer and therefore, less dense and lighter air
mass above the coast as compared with the adjacent
air mass over the surface of water. As the warmer air
rises by convection, cooler air is drawn from the

ocean to fill the void. The warmer air mass returns to

sea at higher levels to complete a convection current.
Accordingly, during the day, there is usually a cooling
sea breeze blowing from the ocean to the shore. The
greater the temperature differences between land and
sea, the stronger the land breezes and sea breezes.

After sunset, the air mass above the coastal land

quickly loses heat while the air mass above the water
generally remains much closer to it's daytime
temperature. When the air mass above the land
becomes cooler than the air mass over water, the wind
direction and convection currents reverse and the land
breeze blows from land out to sea.

(b) land breeze

3. Radiation.
Thermal radiation is electromagnetic radiation emitted
from the surface of an object which is due to the
object's temperature. Infrared radiation from a
common household radiator or electric heater is an
example of thermal radiation, as is the light emitted by
a glowing incandescent light bulb. Thermal radiation
is generated when heat from the movement of charged
particles within atoms is converted to electromagnetic
radiation.
Any object that is hot gives off light known as
Thermal Radiation (or sometimes Blackbody
Radiation ). The hotter an object is, the more light it
emits. And, as the temperature of the object increase, it
emits most of its light at higher and higher energies.
(Higher energy light means shorter wavelength light.)
The relationship between the amount of light emitted,
its wavelength and its temperature is an equation
known as the Planck Law, named after the German
physicist Max Planck, who first discovered it. For a
hot object at a given temperature, T, the equation gives
the amount of light emitted at each wavelength.

Thermal Radiation from Astronomical Objects

Object

Temperature
(K)

Peak
Wavelength

Region

Cosmic
Background

1mm

Microwave
(IR-Radio)

Molecular
Cloud

10

300m

Infrared

Humans

310

9.7m

Infrared

Incandescent
Light Bulb

3000

1m
10,000

IR/Visible

Sun

6000

5000

Visible

Hot Star

30,000

1000

Ultraviolet

Heat is transmitted by Radiation when it is passed

from one place to another without the aid of a material
medium and does not heat the space through which it
travels.
All hot bodies radiate the also absorb radiant heat.
If
Rate of heat absorbed = Rate of heat radiated
Then the body has a constant temperature.
The rate at which a body radiates heat depends on
Temperature of the body
Surface area of the body
Nature of the surface

The StefanBoltzmann law, also known as

Stefan's law, states that the total energy radiated per
unit surface area of a body in unit time is directly
proportional to the fourth power of the body's
temperature in Kelvin T (also called absolute
temperature):
Q
R AT 4
t

Where
R = Rate of energy emitted in Watts
Stefans constant = 5.67x10-8 W/m2K4
emissivity of the material
T = Temperature of the surface in Kelvin
A = Surface area in m2
A black body is an object that absorbs all
electromagnetic radiation that falls on it.
The emissivity of a material (usually written ) is a
measure of a material's ability to radiate absorbed
energy. A true black body would have an = 1
while any real object would have < 1. Emissivity
is a dimensionless quantity (does not have units).
In general, the duller and blacker a material is, the
closer its emissivity is to 1. The more reflective a

material is, the lower its emissivity. Highly

polished silver has an emissivity of about 0.02.

Problem Sheet 4 Conduction and Radiation.

Conduction.
Question 1 A glass window 0.40cm thick measures
83cm by 36cm. How much heat flows through this
window per minute if the inside and outside
temperatures differ by 13oC ?
Question 2. Two metal rods of equal length-one
aluminium, the other stainless steel-are connected
in parallel with a temperature of 14oC at one end
and 130 oC at the other end. Both rods have a
circular cross section with a diameter of 3.00cm
Determine the length the rods must have if the
combined rate of heat flow through them is to be
40.0 J per second.
Question 3. Water is boiled in a rectangular steel
tank heated through a base which is 5 mm thick. If
the water level falls at a rate of 1 cm every 5
minutes calculate the temperature of the lower
surface of the base of the tank.

Question 4. Consider a double-paned window

consisting of two panes of glass, each with a

thickness of 0.550cm and an area of 0.740 m2,

separated by a layer of air with a thickness of
2.00 cm. The temperature on one side of the
window is 00C; the temperature on the other side is
23oC. In addition, note that the thermal
conductivity of glass is roughly 36 times greater
than that of air. Approximate the heat transfer
through this window.

Radiation.
Question 1. The silica cylinder of a radiant wall
heater is 60 cm long and has a radius of 5 mm. If it
is rated at 1.5 kWatts estimate its temperature when
in operation.
Assume and 5.67 x 10-8 W / m2 K4

Question 2. Assuming your skin temperature is

37.2oC and the temperature of your surroundings is
23.4 , determine the length of time required for you
to radiate away the energy gained by eating a 320Calorie ice cream cone. Let the emissivity of your
skin be 0.915 and its area be 1.27 m2.
1 Calorie = 1000 calories
1 calorie = 4.186 J.