Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature as its own body temperature, thus avoiding the need for internal thermoregulation.
The law is frequently qualified to include the condition that the temperature difference is small and the nature of heat transfer mechanism remains the same. As such, it is equivalent to a statement that the heat transfer coefficient, which mediates between heat losses and temperature differences, is a constant.
Convection (or convective heat transfer) is the transfer of heat from one place to another due to the movement of fluid. Although often discussed as a distinct method of heat transfer, convective heat transfer involves the combined processes of conduction (heat diffusion) and advection (heat transfer by bulk fluid flow ).
Surface heat loss may be reduced by insulation of the body surface. Heat is produced internally by metabolic processes and may be supplied from external sources by active heating of the body surface or the breathing gas. [2] Radiation heat loss is usually trivial due to small temperature differences, conduction and convection are the major ...
Thermal conduction is the diffusion of thermal energy (heat) within one material or between materials in contact. The higher temperature object has molecules with more kinetic energy ; collisions between molecules distributes this kinetic energy until an object has the same kinetic energy throughout.
A heat current or thermal current is a kinetic exchange rate between molecules, relative to the material in which the kinesis occurs. It is defined as the net rate of flow of heat . The SI unit of heat current is the watt , which is the flow of heat across a surface at the rate of one Joule per second.
In thermodynamics, heat is energy in transfer between a thermodynamic system and its surroundings by modes other than thermodynamic work and transfer of matter. Such modes are microscopic, mainly thermal conduction, radiation, and friction, as distinct from the macroscopic modes, thermodynamic work and transfer of matter. [1]
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.