Heat transfer

Heat can be defined as the energy exchanged when a difference in temperature exist
between two regions. The science of heat transfer attempts to describe the exchange of heat when
the appropriate physical conditions characterizing that process have been specified. There are
three ways that heat can be transferred. These are by conduction, convection, and radiation.
The first method of heat transfer is conductive heat transfer. Conduction is the most
common heat transfer in solids. Through this process heat is transported through solid materials
or fluids from one body at a given temperature to another body at a lower temperature by the
transfer of kinetic energy through molecular impact. Conduction occurs as hot, rapidly moving
or vibrating atoms and molecules interact with other atoms and molecules. This causes them to
transfer some of their energy , or heat, to these neighboring atoms. Solids that conduct electricity
enhance conduction by the drift of free electrons.
In convective heat transfer, heat is carried from one point to another by the movement of
hot matter from a hot region to a cooler one. This form of heat transfer is most common in
liquids and gases. In fact the term convection is actually used to characterize the combined
effects of conduction and fluid flow. If a liquid is heated from below, the molecules in it begin to
move more rapidly, until they are eventually pushed upward by the colder fluid. A good example
of this is when water is heated on a stove, hot water from the bottom of the pan rises, heating the
water at the top of the pan. Another example is the heating, cooling, and resultant movement of
air molecules in the earth's atmosphere also give rise to convection currents, which we recognize
as wind.
In radiant heat transfer, heat is transported via radiation. This is a completely different
way of heat transfer than convection and conduction because radiation is the only form of heat
transfer that can occur in the absence of any medium. With that being the case it is the only
means of heat transfer through a vacuum. Thermal radiation emitted from a surface depends on
the surface temperature, the type of surface, the wavelength of the emitted radiation, and the
direction in which the heat is radiated. All objects radiate energy; objects at low temperatures
emit long wavelength radiation, those at high temperatures emit short wavelength radiation.
Radiation is how heat reaches the earth from the sun, it is also the principle used in microwaves
and laser cutting.
Heat transfer is composed of three main methods. The most common heat transfer in
solids is through conduction, in liquids it is convection, and in radiation heat is transferred
without a medium. Now we must take a look at the people who shaped what we now know about
heat transfer.

One of the first people to study heat transfer was Jean Baptiste Biot. Biot worked mainly
on the analysis of heat conduction. He was unsuccessful at “dealing with the problem of
incorporating external convection effects in heat conduction analysis”(1). However his findings
lead to Baron Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier solving the problem. Fourier was a mathematician
and physicist from France. “Fourier's masterpiece was his mathematical theory of heat
conduction stated in Theorie Analytique de la Chaleur (1822). As one of the most important
books published in the 19th-century, it marked an epoch both in the history of pure and applied
mathematics. In it, Fourier developed the theory of the series known by his name and applied it
to the solution of boundary-value problems in partial differential equations. This work brought to
a close a long controversy, and henceforth it was generally agreed that almost any function of a
real variable can be represented by a series involving the sines and cosines of integral multiples
of the variable.”(1)
Jean Baptiste Biot Baron Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier

Another Person who advanced the theories on

heat transfer was Ernst Schmidt. He was a German scientist who excelled in engineering
thermodynamics. One of his early research efforts was a careful measurement of the radiation
properties of solids, which caused him to propose and develop the use of aluminum foil as an
effective radiation shield. “In 1925, he received a call to come serve as Professor and Director of
the Engineering Laboratory at the Technical University in Danzig. Here he published papers on
the now well known "Graphical Difference Method for Unsteady Heat Conduction" and on "The
Schlieren and Shadow Method" to make thermal boundaries visible and to obtain local heat-
transfer coefficients.”(1) He was also the first to measure the velocity and temperature field in a
free convection boundary layer and the large heat-transfer coefficients occurring in droplet
condensation. A paper pointing out the analogy between heat and mass transfer caused the
dimensionless quantity involved to be called the "Schmidt Number." (1) Ernst
Schmidt

Osborne Reynolds was an English engineer and physicist who worked widely with heat
conduction and convection. “Reynolds' studies of condensation and the transfer of heat between
solids and fluids brought about radical revisions in boiler and condenser design, and his work on
turbine pumps laid the foundation for their rapid development.”(1) He was also responsible for
the explanation of the radiometer and an early absolute determination of the mechanical
equivalent of heat.

Osborne Reynolds------

An Austrian Physicist by the name of Josef Stefan was widely renowned for his findings
on the heat transfer form of radiation. “Stefan showed in 1879 that the radiation of a perfect
radiator, one that absorbed all the radiation that fell on it and reflected none, but emitted
radiation of all wave lengths, was proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperatures.
This relationship became known as the "Stefan-Boltzmann Law " after it had been deduced by L.
Boltzmann in 1884 from thermodynamic considerations.”(1)
Josef Stefan

In Conclusion heat transfer has had a very long past. As mechanical engineers we will
use heat transfer throughout our careers. Thanks to the brilliant scientists such as Josef Stefan,
Ernst Schmidt, Jean Baptiste Biot, Osborne Reynolds, and Baron Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier to
name a few, we don’t have to derive these complicated formulas.
References

1. http://www.me.utexas.edu/~me339/history.html
2. http://www.bookrags.com/sciences/chemistry/heat-transfer-woc.html
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer