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The rate of heat flow is the amount of heat that is transferred per unit of time in some material, usually measured in watts (joules per second). Heat is the flow of thermal energy driven by thermal non-equilibrium, so the term 'heat flow' is a redundancy (i.e. a pleonasm ).
In physics and engineering, heat flux or thermal flux, sometimes also referred to as heat flux density [1], heat-flow density or heat-flow rate intensity, is a flow of energy per unit area per unit time. Its SI units are watts per square metre (W/m 2). It has both a direction and a magnitude, and so it is a vector quantity.
The heat transfer coefficient has SI units in watts per square meter per kelvin (W/(m 2 K)). The overall heat transfer rate for combined modes is usually expressed in terms of an overall conductance or heat transfer coefficient, U. In that case, the heat transfer rate is: ˙ = where (in SI units):
The statement of Newton's law used in the heat transfer literature puts into mathematics the idea that the rate of heat loss of a body is proportional to the difference in temperatures between the body and its surroundings. For a temperature-independent heat transfer coefficient, the statement is:
Heat transfer can either occur as sensible heat (differences in temperature without evapotranspiration) or latent heat (the energy required during a change of state, without a change in temperature). The Bowen ratio is generally used to calculate heat lost (or gained) in a substance; it is the ratio of energy fluxes from one state to another by ...
The thermal conductivity of a material is a measure of its ability to conduct heat.It is commonly denoted by , , or and is measured in W·m −1 ·K −1.. Heat transfer occurs at a lower rate in materials of low thermal conductivity than in materials of high thermal conductivity.
Thermal conductivity, frequently represented by k, is a property that relates the rate of heat loss per unit area of a material to its rate of change of temperature. Essentially, it is a value that accounts for any property of the material that could change the way it conducts heat. [ 1 ]
Since heat density is proportional to temperature in a homogeneous medium, the heat equation is still obeyed in the new units. Suppose that a body obeys the heat equation and, in addition, generates its own heat per unit volume (e.g., in watts/litre - W/L) at a rate given by a known function q varying in space and time. [ 5 ]