Mechanisms of Heat Transfer

Just as interesting as the effects of heat transfer on a system are the methods by which it occurs. Whenever there is a temperature difference, heat transfer occurs. It may occur rapidly, as through a cooking pan, or slowly, as through the walls of a picnic ice chest. So many processes involve heat transfer that it is hard to imagine a situation where no heat transfer occurs. Yet every heat transfer takes place by only three methods:

1. Conduction is heat transfer through stationary matter by physical contact. (The matter is stationary on a macroscopic scale—we know that thermal motion of the atoms and molecules occurs at any temperature above absolute zero.) Heat transferred from the burner of a stove through the bottom of a pan to food in the pan is transferred by conduction.
2. Convection is the heat transfer by the macroscopic movement of a fluid. This type of transfer takes place in a forced-air furnace and in weather systems, for example.
3. Heat transfer by radiation occurs when microwaves, infrared radiation, visible light, or another form of electromagnetic radiation is emitted or absorbed. An obvious example is the warming of Earth by the Sun. A less obvious example is thermal radiation from the human body.