Three Types of Heat Transfer

There are 3 main types of heat transfer; radiation, conduction and convection. We can see these in this everyday example of cooking where you may want to heat up a saucepan of water. In the first example we can see that the thermal energy is radiating from the fire and heating the surrounding air. This in turn is heating the saucepan through conduction. The thermal energy is then transferred from the bottom surface of the water through to the top surface via convection.
Similarly in this second example showing an electric hob, thermal energy radiating from the heating element causes the bottom surface of the saucepan to heat up, leading to conduction of heat to the rest of the saucepan and heating of the water through convection.

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The metal project closed in May 2023. For more information on accessing some of the previously available courses, please use the project links below.

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