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Carnot was aware that heat could be produced by friction and by percussion, as forms of dissipation of "motive power". [8] As late as 1847, Lord Kelvin believed in the caloric theory of heat, being unaware of Carnot's notes. In 1840, Germain Hess stated a conservation law for the heat of reaction during chemical transformations. [9]
g is the acceleration due to gravity ν is the kinematic viscosity α is the thermal diffusivity β is the thermal expansion coefficient. As the Rayleigh number increases, the gravitational forces become more dominant. At a critical Rayleigh number of 1708, [5] instability sets in and convection cells appear.
The characteristic energy k B T associated with a single microscopic degree of freedom, where T denotes temperature and k B denotes the Boltzmann constant. Mark Zemansky (1970) has argued that the term “thermal energy” is best avoided due to its ambiguity.
The flow of heat is a form of energy transfer. Heat transfer is the natural process of moving energy to or from a system, other than by work or the transfer of matter. In a diathermal system, the internal energy can only be changed by the transfer of energy as heat: =.
In most cases this leads to natural circulation: the ability of a fluid in a system to circulate continuously under gravity, with transfer of heat energy. The driving force for natural convection is gravity. In a column of fluid, pressure increases with depth from the weight of the overlying fluid.
One can model particle diffusion by an equation involving either: the volumetric concentration of particles, denoted c, in the case of collective diffusion of a large number of particles, or; the probability density function associated with the position of a single particle, denoted P. In either case, one uses the heat equation
Heat can flow into or out of a closed system by way of thermal conduction or of thermal radiation to or from a thermal reservoir, and when this process is effecting net transfer of heat, the system is not in thermal equilibrium. While the transfer of energy as heat continues, the system's temperature can be changing.
A heat engine is a system that performs the conversion of a flow of thermal energy (heat) to mechanical energy to perform mechanical work. [ 32 ] [ 33 ] A thermocouple is a temperature-measuring device and a widely used type of temperature sensor for measurement and control, and can also be used to convert heat into electric power.