Heat Transfer: No Magic About It
A burning match is an example of heat transfer.Copyright 2004 Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399 USA. All rights reserved.
Heat transfer is an important concept that is readily evident in our everyday lives yet often misunderstood by students. In this lesson, students learn the scientific concepts of temperature, heat, and heat transfer through conduction, convection and radiation. These concepts are illustrated by comparison to magical spells used in the Harry Potter stories.
Heat is a concept that is important to understand in various engineering fields. It is particularly relevant for civil, mechanical and chemical engineers because heat transfer plays a key role in material selection, machinery efficiency and reaction kinetics, respectively. In this lesson, students learn how heat transfer applies to engineering and are asked to consider examples of engineering designs that have capitalized on the scientific principles of heat transfer.
After this lesson, students should be able to:
- Define and explain heat, conduction, convection and radiation.
- Explain the relationship between the kinetic and potential energy of atoms in a thermodynamic system.
- Relate the above concepts to common engineering designs and examples from nature.