• Bring your 2026 application questions to our open office hours with Emil Chuck, PhD, Director of Advising Services for HPSA, and get them answered live. Personal statements, secondaries, interview prep, school list strategy. Sunday, May 17 at 9 p.m. Eastern.

Radiation

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Radiation is just energy - so like UV light or gamma rays or even light. The energy hits a surface and excites particles to move. That moving causes an increase in the kinetic energy of those particles, or "thermal excitation," which results in an increase in temperature.
 
Radiation is just energy - so like UV light or gamma rays or even light. The energy hits a surface and excites particles to move. That moving causes an increase in the kinetic energy of those particles, or "thermal excitation," which results in an increase in temperature.

Can you say that out of three methods of heat transfer (conduction convection radiation) can you have more than one occurring at the same time?

For example, if you have a heater heating a room, can you say that both conduction and convection are occurring since the air particles are hitting each other to transfer energy and also moving as fluid?

Just wanted to clarify thanks!




Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
 
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Can you say that out of three methods of heat transfer (conduction convection radiation) can you have more than one occurring at the same time?

Yes, of course you can have more than one occurring simultaneously! In fact, when you're boiling a pot of water, you have all three occurring at once. Radiation from the energy from the heating coils hitting the pot, convection from the water cycling up the pot and back down as it cools, and conduction as the hot water moves up and contacts the cooler water and sides of the pot.
 
Slight correction, whenever two bodies of different temperatures are in direct contact with each other, radiation heat transfer disappears as the heat is transferred via conduction. In fluids, this conductive transfer will spark convective, and in a open system, both hot bodies will radiate heat to the environment, but will not radiate between each other.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
 
Last edited: