UOIT

Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science

Winter Semester 2007

ENGR3930U-HEAT TRANSFER

Steady Heat Conduction

Drs. Ibrahim Dincer & Mehmet Kanoglu

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 Heat and Mass Transfer, 3rd Edition
Yunus A. Cengel
McGraw-Hill, New York, 2007

Chapter 3
STEADY HEAT
CONDUCTION

M. Kanoglu, Y. Pelez

Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
 OUTLINE
• Steady Heat Conduction in Plane Walls
• Thermal Contact Resistance
• Generalized Thermal Resistance Networks
• Heat Conduction in Cylinders and Spheres
• Critical Radius of Insulation
• Heat Transfer from Finned Surfaces
• Heat Transfer in Common Configurations
• Conclusions

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Steady Heat Conduction In Plane Walls
Heat transfer through the wall is in
the normal direction to the wall
surface, and no significant heat
transfer takes place in the wall in
other directions.
Heat transfer in a certain direction
is driven by the temperature
gradient in that direction.

There will be no heat transfer in a

direction in which there is no
change in temperature.

If the air temperatures in and

outside the house remain constant,
then heat transfer through the wall
of a house can be modeled as steady
and one-dimensional.
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Integrating and rearranging

• Energy balance:

or

for steady operation (no change in the temperature of the

wall with time at any point) and

• The Fourier’s law of heat conduction for the wall:

where dT/dx= constant and T varies linearly with x. 5

 The Thermal Resistance Concept
Heat conduction through a plane wall is

where

is the thermal resistance of the wall against heat conduction

(conduction resistance). The thermal resistance of a medium depends on
the geometry and the thermal properties of the medium.

Taking into account analogous to the

relation for electric current flow I:

where Re = L/σeA is the electric resistance

and V1 - V2 is the voltage difference across
the resistance (σe is the electrical
conductivity).
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Newton’s law of cooling for convection heat transfer rate:

can be rearranged as

with

which is the thermal resistance of the

surface against heat convection, or simply
the convection resistance of the surface.

When the convection heat transfer

coefficient is very large , the
convection resistance becomes zero and
. . That is, the surface offers no
resistance to convection, and thus it does
not slow down the heat transfer process.

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The rate of radiation heat transfer between a surface of emissivity ε
and area As at temperature Ts and the surrounding surfaces at some
average temperature Tsurr can be expressed as

with which is the radiation resistance.

is the radiation heat transfer coefficient.

Both Ts and Tsurr must be in K in the evaluation of hrad.
When , the radiation effect can properly be accounted for by
replacing h in the convection resistance relation by

where hcombined is the combined heat transfer coefficient. 8

Thermal Resistance Network

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Under steady conditions

or

which can be rearranged as

Adding the numerators and denominators

yields

where

The thermal resistances are in series, and the equivalent thermal

resistance is determined by simply adding the individual resistances,
just like the electrical resistances connected in series.
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The equation can be rearranged as

Here, the temperature drop across any layer is equal to the rate of
heat transfer times the thermal resistance across that layer.

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Analogous to Newton’s law of cooling as
U: the overall heat transfer coefficient

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 Multilayer Plane Walls
The rate of steady heat transfer through a
plane wall consisting of two layers

Rtotal: the total thermal resistance

for the resistances in series.

F It is limited to systems involving steady

heat transfer with no heat generation. 13
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 THERMAL CONTACT RESISTANCE
In the analysis of heat conduction through multilayer solids, we
assumed “perfect contact” at the interface of two layers, and thus no
temperature drop at the interface.
Thermal Contact Resistance (Rc.): the resistance per unit interface area

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Heat transfer through the interface
of two metal rods of cross-sectional
area A is the sum of the heat
transfers through the solid contact
spots and the gaps in the noncontact
areas and can be expressed as

An analogous manner to Newton’s law

of cooling:

A: the apparent interface area

(which is the same as the cross-
sectional area of the rods
Tinterface: the effective temperature
difference at the interface
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The thermal contact conductance is expressed as

It is related to thermal contact resistance by

The thermal resistance of a 1-cm-thick layer of an insulating material

per unit surface area is

whereas for a 1-cm-thick layer of copper, it is

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The thermal contact conductance is highest (with the lowest contact
resistance) for soft metals with smooth surfaces at high pressure. 24
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 GENERALIZED THERMAL RESISTANCE NETWORKS
For the composite wall consisting of
two parallel layers, the total heat
transfer is the sum of the heat
transfers through each layer.

With the electrical analogy

with

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For the combined series-parallel arrangement, the total rate of heat
transfer through this composite system is

with

and

Two assumptions:
(i) any plane wall normal to the x-axis is
isothermal and
(ii) any plane parallel to the x-axis is
adiabatic.

These assumptions result in different resistance networks, while

the actual result lies between two assumptions.
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 HEAT CONDUCTION IN CYLINDERS AND SPHERES
The Fourier’s law of heat conduction for heat
transfer through the cylindrical layer is

Here, is the heat transfer area at

location r

We obtain

since = constant.
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The thermal resistance of the cylindrical layer against heat
conduction, or simply the conduction resistance of the cylinder layer.

Repeating the analysis for a spherical layer by taking

with

which is the thermal resistance of the spherical layer against heat

conduction, or simply the conduction resistance of the spherical
layer.
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The rate of heat transfer through a cylindrical or spherical layer
under steady conditions:

where

for a cylindrical layer, and

for a spherical layer.

A in the convection resistance relation Rconv=
1/hA is the surface area at which convection
occurs.
It is equal to A = 2πrL for a cylindrical surface
and A = 4πr2 for a spherical surface of radius r. 33
 Multilayered Cylinders and Spheres
Steady heat transfer through multilayered cylindrical or spherical
shells is treated like multilayered plane walls.

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Rtotal is the total thermal resistance, expressed as

Here, A1 = 2 πr1L and A4 = 2 πr4L

The total thermal resistance is

simply the arithmetic sum of the
individual thermal resistances in the
path of heat flow

We can also calculate T2 from

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CRITICAL RADIUS OF INSULATION
The rate of heat transfer from the insulated
pipe to the surrounding air is

Performing the differentiation and solving

for r2 yields the critical radius of insulation
for a cylindrical body to be

The critical radius of insulation for a spherical

shell is

k : the thermal conductivity of the insulation

h : the convection heat transfer coefficient on the 41
outer surface
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 HEAT TRANSFER FROM FINNED SURFACES
The rate of heat transfer from a surface at a temperature Ts to the
surrounding medium at T is given by Newton’s law of cooling as

As : the heat transfer surface area

h : the convection heat transfer coefficient

There are two ways to increase the rate of heat transfer:

1) to increase the convection heat transfer coefficient h
2) to increase the surface area As

Increasing h may require the installation of a pump or fan, or replacing

the existing one with a larger one, but this approach may or may not
be practical. Besides, it may not be adequate.

The alternative is to increase the surface area by attaching to the

surface extended surfaces called fins made of highly conductive
materials such as aluminum.

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Consider steady operation with no heat
generation in the fin with the following
assumptions:
• The thermal conductivity k of the
material remains constant.
• The convection heat transfer
coefficient h is constant and uniform
over the entire surface of the fin for
convenience in the analysis.

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Fin Equation
Under steady conditions, the energy balance on this volume element
can be expressed as

or

with

Substituting and dividing by Δx, we obtain

Taking the limit as Δx → 0 gives

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From Fourier’s law of heat conduction we have

where Ac : the cross-sectional area of the fin at location x

In the special case (with constant cross section and thermal conductivity):

with

and is the temperature excess.

At the fin base we have .
The function u and its second derivative
must be constant multiples of each
other.

where C1 and C2 are arbitrary constants.

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 Infinitely Long Fin (Tfin tip = T∞)
For a sufficiently long fin of uniform cross section (Ac constant):

p : the perimeter
Ac : the cross-sectional
area of the fin
x : the distance from
the fin base

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 Negligible Heat Loss from the Fin Tip
(Insulated fin tip, )
The fin tip can be assumed to be insulated, and the condition at the
fin tip can be expressed as

The rate of heat transfer from the fin can be determined again from
Fourier’s law of heat conduction:

The heat transfer relations for the very long fin and the fin with
negligible heat loss at the tip differ by the factor tanh aL, which
approaches 1 as L becomes very large.
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 Convection (or Combined Convection and
Radiation) from Fin Tip
A practical way of accounting for the heat loss from the fin tip is
to replace the fin length L in the relation for the insulated tip
case by a corrected length defined as

t: the thickness of the rectangular fins

D: the diameter of the cylindrical fins.

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Fin Efficiency

In the limiting case of zero thermal

resistance or infinite thermal
conductivity, the temperature
of the fin will be uniform at the
base value of Tb.

The heat transfer from the fin will

be maximum in this case and can be
expressed as

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Fin efficiency can be defined as:

or

For the cases of constant cross section of

very long fins and fins with insulated tips,
the fin efficiency can be expressed as

and

since Afin = pL for fins with constant cross section. 53

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• Fins with triangular and parabolic profiles contain less material and
are more efficient than the ones with rectangular profiles, and
thus are more suitable for applications requiring minimum weight
such as space applications.

• An important consideration in the design of finned surfaces is the

selection of the proper fin length L. Normally the longer the fin,
the larger the heat transfer area and thus the higher the rate of
heat transfer from the fin.

• The larger the fin, the bigger the mass, the higher the price, and
the larger the fluid friction. Therefore, increasing the length of
the fin beyond a certain value cannot be justified unless the added
benefits outweigh the added cost.

• Fin lengths that cause the fin efficiency to drop below 60%
percent usually cannot be justified economically and should be
avoided. The efficiency of most fins used in practice is above 90%.

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 Fin Effectiveness
The performance of fins expressed in terms of the fin effectiveness
εfin is defined

Ab : the cross-sectional area of the fin at

the base
: the rate of heat transfer from this
area if no fins are attached to the surface.

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An effectiveness of εfin= 1 indicates that the addition of fins to
the surface does not affect heat transfer at all.

An effectiveness of εfin < 1 indicates that the fin actually acts as

insulation, slowing down the heat transfer from the surface.

An effectiveness of εfin > 1 indicates that fins are enhancing heat

transfer from the surface, as they should.

Finned surfaces are designed on the basis of maximizing

effectiveness for a specified cost or minimizing cost for a desired
effectiveness.

The fin efficiency and fin effectiveness are related to each other
by

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The effectiveness of a sufficiently long fin of uniform cross section
under steady conditions is determined to be

since Ac = Ab.

In the design and selection of the fins, the following should be taken
into account:
• The thermal conductivity k of the fin material should be as high as
possible. Thus it is no coincidence that fins are made from metals,
with copper, aluminum, and iron being the most common ones. Perhaps
the most widely used fins are made of aluminum because of its low
cost and weight and its resistance to corrosion.

• The ratio of the perimeter to the cross-sectional area of the fin

p/Ac should be as high as possible. This criterion is satisfied by thin
plate fins and slender pin fins.

• The use of fins is most effective in applications involving a low

convection heat transfer coefficient. 60
The rate of heat transfer for a surface containing n fins can be
expressed as

The overall effectiveness for a finned

surface is defined as the ratio of the
total heat transfer from the finned
surface to the heat transfer from the
same surface if there were no fins.

Ano fin : the area of the surface when

there are no fins
Afin : the total surface area of all the
fins on the surface
Aunfin : the area of the unfinned portion
of the surface 61
 Proper Length of a Fin
To get a sense of the proper length of a fin,
we compare heat transfer from a fin of finite
length to heat transfer from an infinitely long
fin under the same conditions. The ratio of
these two heat transfers is

Studies have shown that the error involved

in one-dimensional fin analysis is negligible
(less than about 1%) when

The heat transfer performance of heat sinks is usually expressed in

terms of their thermal resistances R in oC/W, which is defined as

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HEAT TRANSFER IN COMMON CONFIGURATIONS
• We have dealt with 1-D simple geometries.
F The question: What happens if we have 2- or 3-D complicated
geometries?
• The steady rate of heat transfer between two surfaces at constant
temperatures T1 and T2 is expressed as

S : the conduction shape factor (which has the dimension of length)

k : the thermal conductivity of the medium between the surfaces
F The conduction shape factor depends on the geometry of the system
only.
A comparison of the following equations reveals that the conduction
shape factor S is related to the thermal resistance R by R = 1/kS or
S = 1/kR.

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 Concluding Points:
• Steady and One-Dimensional Modeling of Heat Transfer through a Wall
• Conduction and Convection Resistances
• Analogy between Thermal and Electrical Resistances
• Radiation and Combined Heat Transfer Coefficients
• Overall Heat Transfer Coefficient
• Heat Transfer through a Plane and Multilayer Plane Walls
• Thermal Contact Resistance
• Generalized Thermal Resistance Networks
• Heat Conduction in Multilayered Cylinders and Spheres
• Critical Radius of Insulation for Cylindrical and Spherical Bodies
• Heat Transfer from Finned Surfaces
• Fin Efficiency, Fin Effectiveness and Overall Effectiveness
• Important Considerations in the Design and Selection of Fins
• Heat Transfer in Common Configurations and Conduction Shape Factors

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