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Lecture

Transient Heat Transfer: Spatial Effects

In course

ME-341: Heat and mass transfer

This course covers fundamentals of heat transfer and applications to practical problems. Emphasis will be on developing a physical and analytical understanding of conductive, convective, and radiative heat transfer. ...

Description

This lecture covers transient heat transfer with spatial effects, focusing on topics such as lumped capacitance model, generalized solutions for different geometries, and periodic heating. The instructor explains the concepts of Bi number, Fourier number, and convective cooling in the context of solving transient heat conduction problems. The lecture also discusses the non-linear temperature distribution within a wall during transient heat conduction. Practical examples are provided to illustrate the application of these concepts in evaluating cooling processes for different materials.

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Instructor

Giulia Tagliabue

Dr. Giulia Tagliabue is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Mechanical Engineering (IGM). She obtained her B.S. and M.S degrees cum laude in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Udine in Italy. Concurrently she also obtained the diploma from the Scuola Normale Superiore of Udine. In 2015 she obtained her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from ETH Zurich with a thesis on nanophotonic design for light-to-heat and light-to-charge conversion devices. In 2015 Dr. Tagliabue was awarded the Early Mobility Fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation and moved to Caltech as a PostDoctoral fellow. In 2017, thanks to the award of an Advanced Mobility Fellowship, she prolonged her stay at Caltech. Here, in collaboration with the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) she investigated coupled light, heat and charge transfer processes in nanophotonic structures and low-dimensional materials for photoelectrochemical and photovoltaic sustainable energy conversion.

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Mechanical engineering

Thermal engineering: Air conditioning

Related concepts (32)

Heat transfer

Heat transfer is a discipline of thermal engineering that concerns the generation, use, conversion, and exchange of thermal energy (heat) between physical systems. Heat transfer is classified into various mechanisms, such as thermal conduction, thermal convection, thermal radiation, and transfer of energy by phase changes. Engineers also consider the transfer of mass of differing chemical species (mass transfer in the form of advection), either cold or hot, to achieve heat transfer.

Thermal conduction

Conduction is the process by which heat is transferred from the hotter end to the colder end of an object. The ability of the object to conduct heat is known as its thermal conductivity, and is denoted k. Heat spontaneously flows along a temperature gradient (i.e. from a hotter body to a colder body). For example, heat is conducted from the hotplate of an electric stove to the bottom of a saucepan in contact with it.

Heat

In thermodynamics, heat is the thermal energy transferred between systems due to a temperature difference. In colloquial use, heat sometimes refers to thermal energy itself. An example of formal vs. informal usage may be obtained from the right-hand photo, in which the metal bar is "conducting heat" from its hot end to its cold end, but if the metal bar is considered a thermodynamic system, then the energy flowing within the metal bar is called internal energy, not heat.

Fourier number

In the study of heat conduction, the Fourier number, is the ratio of time, , to a characteristic time scale for heat diffusion, . This dimensionless group is named in honor of J.B.J. Fourier, who formulated the modern understanding of heat conduction. The time scale for diffusion characterizes the time needed for heat to diffuse over a distance, . For a medium with thermal diffusivity, , this time scale is , so that the Fourier number is . The Fourier number is often denoted as or .

Newton's law of cooling

In the study of heat transfer, Newton's law of cooling is a physical law which states that The rate of heat loss of a body is directly proportional to the difference in the temperatures between the body and its environment. 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.

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