Heat Transfer (saylor.org)

Please note: this legacy course does not offer a certificate and may contain broken links and outdated information. Although archived, it is open for learning without registration or enrollment.

Heat transfer is the thermal energy in transit due to a spatial temperature difference. The topic of heat transfer has enormous applications in mechanical engineering, ranging from cooling of microelectronics to design of jet engines and operations of nuclear power plants. In this course, you will learn about what heat transfer is, what governs the rate of heat transfer, and why heat transfer is so important. You will also learn about the three major modes of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. Heat conduction is the transport of heat through a solid body, by vibrations of molecules or in the case of electrical conductors, by movement of electrons from one molecule to another. Heat convection is a process by which heat is transferred through a fluid by motion of fluid. Thermal radiation is the transport of energy between two bodies by electromagnetic waves. In addition to the three main modes of heat transfer, you will also learn about heat transfer during phase changes (boiling and condensation heat transfer).

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

- Formulate basic equation for heat transfer problems.

- Apply heat transfer principles to design and to evaluate performance of thermal systems.

- Solve differential and algebraic equations associated with thermal systems using analytical and numerical approaches.

- Calculate the performance of heat exchangers.

- Calculate radiation heat transfer between objects with simple geometries.

- Calculate and evaluate the impacts of initial and boundary conditions on the solutions of a particular heat transfer problem.

- Evaluate the relative contributions of different modes of heat transfer.