When is conduction useful

The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Example of situation with conduction, convection, and radiation Ask Question.

Asked 8 years, 6 months ago. Active 3 years, 3 months ago. Viewed k times. Some examples are: Conduction: Touching a stove and being burned Ice cooling down your hand Boiling water by thrusting a red-hot piece of iron into it Convection: Hot air rising, cooling, and falling convection currents An old-fashioned radiator creates a convection cell in a room by emitting warm air at the top and drawing in cool air at the bottom.

Radiation: Heat from the sun warming your face Heat from a lightbulb Heat from a fire Heat from anything else which is warmer than its surroundings.

Improve this question. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. These methods are known as conduction, convection and radiation.

Radiation transfers heat using electromagnetic waves and does not involve any interaction between matter. Heat that comes from the sun is an example of radiation. Convection occurs in liquids and gasses and describes the movement of heat from one location to another facilitated by the movement of fluids.

When heated, fluids expand and become less dense. The hot fluid rises and displaces the cold fluid located above it pushing it down towards the heat source. This cold fluid will become heated and rise upwards creating a constant flow of fluid from an area of high heat to low heat.

Convection explains how baseboard radiators can heat a whole room. The hot air generated from the radiators flows quickly upwards pushing the cold air down towards the heater on the floor creating a constant air flow. Heat transfer through conduction involves the transfer of heat between two materials from surface contact.

No matter is exchanged between materials, only energy. This type of heat transfer occurs in solid materials and is caused by the vibrations of particles. When exposed to a flow of energy the particles in a solid begin to wiggle, rotate and vibrate creating kinetic energy.

A common example of conduction is the process of heating a pan on a stove. The heat from the burner transfers directly to the surface of the pan. Temperature is a measure of the amount of kinetic energy processed by the particles in a sample of matter.

The more kinetic energy a material has, the higher its internal temperature will be. Figure 1: Mechanisms of heat transfer diagram. Matter with high kinetic energy will also have a high thermal conductivity. Thermal conductivity describes how efficiently a material can pass heat through it. It is defined by the rate of energy flow per unit area when compared to a temperature gradient.

Thermal conductivity explains why walking bare foot on a cold tile floor feels much cooler than walking on carpet even though both are at room temperature. Tile and rocks have a higher thermal conductivity than carpet and fabrics so they can transfer heat away from a foot at a much quicker rate making the tile appear cool to the touch. Metals are an example of a material with a high thermal conductivity that can quickly transfer heat.

Then, review some examples of radiation in daily life. All rights reserved. Conduction Defined in Simple Terms Conduction is one of the ways that heat can transfer from one place to another. For conduction to take place between two objects, they must be touching each other.

For conduction to occur between atoms within the same object, they must also be touching or nearly touching. Everyday Examples of Heat or Thermal Conduction Heat conduction and thermal conduction mean the same thing. You can warm your back muscles with a heating pad. As the pad heats up, it transfers heat to the part of your body that it is in contact with.

The heat from a hot liquid makes the cup itself hot. If you grab a cup that has hot coffee, tea or broth in it, the cup itself will be hot and your hands will feel it. If you are cold and someone holds you to warm you, the heat is being conducted from their body to yours.

If you leave a metal spoon propped up in a pot, it will become hot from the boiling water inside the pot. Chocolate candy in your hand will eventually melt as heat is conducted from your hand to the chocolate. When ironing a piece of clothing, the iron is hot and the heat is transferred to the clothing.

If you stoke a fire in the fireplace with a poker and leave the poker in the fire, the poker will become very hot. A heat exchanger uses a hot fluid to conduct heat to a cooler fluid without the two actually coming into direct contact.

If you touch a hot stove, heat will be conducted to your finger and your skin will burn. Sand can conduct heat.