PHY 111

Thermal Conduction
The energy transfer process most closely associated with a temperature difference is called
thermal conduction or simply conduction. In this process the transfer can be viewed on an atomic
scale as an exchange of kinetic energy between microscopic particles—molecules, atoms, and
electrons—with less energetic particles gaining energy as they collide with more energetic
particles. An inexpensive pot, may have a metal handle with no surrounding insulation. As the pot
is warmed, the temperature of the metal handle increases, and the cook must hold it with a cloth
potholder to avoid being burned.
The way the handle warms up can be understood by looking at what happens to the microscopic
particles in the metal. Before the pot is placed on the stove, the particles are vibrating about their
equilibrium positions. As the stove coil warms up, those particles in contact with it begin to vibrate
with larger amplitudes. These particles collide with their neighbors and transfer some of their
energy in the collisions.
Metal atoms and electrons farther and farther from the flame gradually increase the amplitude of
their vibrations, until eventually those in the metal near your hand are affected. This increased
vibration represents an increase in temperature of the metal (and possibly a burned hand!).
Although the transfer of energy through a substance can be partly explained by atomic vibrations,
the rate of conduction depends on the properties of the substance. Conduction occurs only if there
is a difference in temperature between two parts of the conducting medium. The temperature
difference drives the flow of energy.
Figure 1
Suppose a substance is in the shape of a long, uniform rod of length L, as in Figure 1. We assume
the rod is insulated, so thermal energy can’t escape by conduction from its surface except at the
ends. One end is in thermal contact with an energy reservoir at temperature Tc and the other end is
in thermal contact with a reservoir at temperature Th >Tc. When a steady state is reached, the
temperature at each point along the rod is constant in time. In this case ∆𝑇 = 𝑇𝐾 − 𝑇𝐶 and ∆𝑥 = 𝐿,
so
∆𝑇 𝑇𝐾 − 𝑇𝐶
=
∆𝑥 𝐿
The rate of energy transfer by conduction through the rod is given by
𝑸 ∆𝑇 𝑇𝐾 − 𝑇𝐶
𝑷= ∝𝑨 = 𝒌𝑨 ( )
∆𝒕 ∆𝑥 𝐿
where k, a proportionality constant that depends on the material, is called the thermal
conductivity. Substances that are good conductors have large thermal conductivities, whereas
good insulators have low thermal conductivities.

Example 1: In a human being, a layer of fat and muscle lies under the skin having various
thicknesses depending on location. In response to a cold environment, capillaries near the surface
of the body constrict, reducing blood flow and thereby reducing the conductivity of the tissues.
These tissues form a shell up to an inch thick having a thermal conductivity of about 0.21W/mK,
the same as skin or fat. (a) Estimate the rate of loss of thermal energy due to conduction from the
human core region to the skin surface, assuming a shell thickness of 2.0 cm and a skin temperature
of 33.0°C. (Skin temperature varies, depending on external conditions.)
(b) Calculate the thermal energy lost due to conduction in 1.0 h. (c) Estimate the change in body
temperature in 1.0 h if the energy is not replenished. Assume a body mass of 75 kg and a skin
surface area of 1.73 m2.

CONVECTION
When you warm your hands over an open flame, the air directly above the flame, being warmed,
expands. As a result, the density of this air decreases and the air rises, warming your hands as it
flows by. The transfer of energy by the movement of a substance is called convection. When the
movement results from differences in density, as with air around a fire, it’s referred to as natural
convection. Airflow at a beach is an example of natural convection, as is the mixing that occurs as
surface water in a lake cools and sinks. When the substance is forced to move by a fan or pump,
as in some hot air and hot water heating systems, the process is called forced convection.
Convection currents assist in the boiling of water. In a teakettle on a hot stovetop, the lower layers
of water are warmed first. The warmed water has a lower density and rises to the top, while the
denser, cool water at the surface sinks to the bottom of the kettle and is warmed.
The same process occurs when a radiator raises the temperature of a room. The hot radiator warms
the air in the lower regions of the room. The warm air expands and, because of its lower density,
rises to the ceiling. The denser, cooler air from above sinks, setting up the continuous air current
pattern.

Radiation
Another process of transferring energy is through radiation. All objects radiate energy
continuously in the form of electromagnetic waves due to thermal vibrations of their molecules.
These vibrations create the orange glow of an electric stove burner, an electric space heater, and
the coils of a toaster The rate at which an object radiates energy is proportional to the fourth power
of its absolute temperature. This is known as Stefan’s law, expressed in equation form as
𝑃 = 𝜎𝐴𝑒𝑇 4
where P is the power in watts (or joules per second) radiated by the object, s is the Stefan–
Boltzmann constant, equal to 5.669 6 x 10-8 W/m2K4, A is the surface area of the object in square
meters, e is a constant called the emissivity of the object, and T is the object’s Kelvin temperature.
The value of e can vary between zero and one, depending on the properties of the object’s surface.
As an object radiates energy at a rate given by the above equation, it also absorbs radiation. If it
didn’t, the object would eventually radiate all its energy and its temperature would reach absolute
zero. The energy an object absorbs comes from its environment, which consists of other bodies
that radiate energy. If an object is at a temperature T and its surroundings are at a temperature T0,
the net energy gained or lost each second by the object as a result of radiation is
𝑃𝑛𝑒𝑡 = 𝜎𝐴𝑒(𝑇 4 − 𝑇0 4 )
When an object is in equilibrium with its surroundings, it radiates and absorbs energy at the same
rate, so its temperature remains constant. When an object is hotter than its surroundings, it radiates
more energy than it absorbs and therefore cools.
An ideal absorber is an object that absorbs all the light radiation incident on it, including invisible
infrared and ultraviolet light. Such an object is called a black body because a room temperature
black body would look black. Because a black body doesn’t reflect radiation at any wavelength,
any light coming from it is due to atomic and molecular vibrations alone. A perfect black body has
emissivity e = 1. An ideal absorber is also an ideal radiator of energy. The Sun, for example, is
nearly a perfect black body. This statement may seem contradictory because the Sun is bright, not
dark; the light that comes from the Sun, however, is emitted, not reflected. Black bodies are perfect
absorbers that look black at room temperature because they don’t reflect any light. All black
bodies, except those at absolute zero, emit light that has a characteristic spectrum. In contrast to
black bodies, an object for which e = 0 absorbs none of the energy incident on it, reflecting it all.
Such a body is an ideal reflector. White clothing is more comfortable to wear in the summer than
black clothing.
Black fabric acts as a good absorber of incoming sunlight and as a good emitter of this absorbed
energy. About half of the emitted energy, however, travels toward the body, causing the person
wearing the garment to feel uncomfortably warm. White or light-colored clothing reflects away
much of the incoming energy.

Example 2: A member of the Polar Bear Club, dressed only in bathing trunks of negligible
size, prepares to plunge into the Baltic Sea from the beach in St. Petersburg, Russia. The air
is calm, with a temperature of 5°C. If the swimmer’s surface body temperature is 25°C,
compute the net rate of energy loss from his skin due to radiation. How much energy is lost
in 10.0 min? Assume his emissivity is 0.900 and his surface area is 1.50 m2.

Ideal Gas Theory

An ideal gas is a collection of atoms or molecules that move randomly and exert no long-range
forces on each other. Each particle of the ideal gas is individually point like, occupying a negligible
volume. A gas usually consists of a very large number of particles, so it’s convenient to express
the amount of gas in a given volume in terms of the number of moles, n. A mole is a number. The
same number of particles is found in a mole of helium as in a mole of iron or aluminum. This
number is known as Avogadro’s number and is given by

NA = 6.02 x 1023 particles/mole

Avogadro’s number and the definition of a mole are fundamental to chemistry and related branches
of physics. The number of moles of a substance is related to its mass m by the expression

n = m / molar mass

where the molar mass of the substance is defined as the mass of one mole of that substance, usually
expressed in grams per mole.

Therefore, One mole (mol) of any substance is that amount of the substance that contains as many
particles (atoms, molecules, or other particles) as there are atoms in 12 g of the isotope carbon-12.
Now suppose an ideal gas is confined to a cylindrical container with a volume that can be changed
by moving a piston, as in Figure 1. Assume that the cylinder doesn’t leak, so the number of moles
remains constant. Experiments yield the following observations:
First, when the gas is kept at a constant temperature, its pressure is inversely proportional to its
volume (Boyle’s law).
Second, when the pressure of the gas is kept constant, the volume of the gas is directly proportional
to the temperature (Charles’s law).
Third, when the volume of the gas is held constant, the pressure is directly proportional to the
temperature (Gay-Lussac’s law).
These observations can be summarized by the following equation of state, known as the ideal gas
law:
PV = nRT
In this equation R is a constant for a specific gas that must be determined from experiments,
whereas T is the temperature in kelvins. Each point on a P versus V diagram would represent a
different state of the system. Experiments on several gases show that, as the pressure approaches
zero, the quantity PV/nT approaches the same value of R for all gases. For this reason, R is called
the universal gas constant. In SI units, where pressure is expressed in pascals and volume in cubic
meters,
R = 8.31 J/mol . K
If the pressure is expressed in atmospheres and the volume is given in liters (recall that 1L = 103cm3
= 10-5 m3), then
R = 0.082 1 L. atm/mol . K
Using this value of R and Equation 3, the volume occupied by 1 mol of any ideal gas at atmospheric
pressure and at 0°C (273 K) is 22.4 L.
EXAMPLE 1: An ideal gas at 20.0°C and a pressure of 1.50 x 105 Pa is in a container having
a volume of 1.00 L. (a) Determine the number of moles of gas in the container. (b) The gas
pushes against a piston, expanding to twice its original volume, while the pressure falls to
atmospheric pressure. Find the final temperature.

As previously stated, the number of molecules contained in one mole of any gas is Avogadro’s
number, NA = 6.02 x 1023 particles/mol, so

n = N / NA

where n is the number of moles and N is the number of molecules in the gas. With Equation 5, we
can rewrite the ideal gas law in terms of the total number of molecules as

𝑁
PV= nRT =𝑁𝐴 𝑅𝑇

or

PV = NkBT

where

KB= R/NA = 1.38 x10-23J/

is Boltzmann’s constant. This reformulation of the ideal gas law will be used in the next section to
relate the temperature of a gas to the average kinetic energy of particles in the gas.

The Kinetic Theory of Gases

1. The number of molecules in the gas is large, and the average separation between them is
large compared with their dimensions. Because the number of molecules is large, we can
analyze their behavior statistically. The large separation between molecules means that the
molecules occupy a negligible volume in the container. This assumption is consistent with
the ideal gas model, in which we imagine the molecules to be point like.
 2. The molecules obey Newton’s laws of motion, but as a whole they move randomly. By
“randomly” we mean that any molecule can move in any direction with equal probability,
with a wide distribution of speeds.

3. The molecules interact only through short-range forces during elastic collisions. This
assumption is consistent with the ideal gas model, in which the molecules exert no long-
range forces on each other.

4. The molecules make elastic collisions with the walls.

5. All molecules in the gas are identical.

Although we often picture an ideal gas as consisting of single atoms, molecular gases exhibit ideal
behavior at low pressures. On average, effects associated with molecular structure have no effect
on the motions considered, so we can apply the results of the following development to molecular
gases as well as to monatomic gases.

The First Law of Thermodynamics

The first law of thermodynamics is another energy conservation law that relates changes in
internal energy—the energy associated with the position and jiggling of all the molecules of a
system—to energy transfers due to heat and work. The first law is universally valid, applicable to
all kinds of processes, providing a connection between the microscopic and macroscopic worlds.
There are two ways energy can be transferred between a system and its surrounding environment:
by doing work, which requires a macroscopic displacement of an object through the application of
a force, and by a direct exchange of energy across the system boundary, often by heat. Heat is the
transfer of energy between a system and its environment due to a temperature difference and
usually occurs through one or more of the mechanisms of radiation, conduction, and convection.
For example, if hot gases cause radiation to impinge on a cylinder, raising its temperature, and
energy Q is transferred by conduction to the gas, where it is distributed mainly through convection.
Other processes for transferring energy into a system are possible, such as a chemical reaction or
an electrical discharge. Any energy Q exchanged between the system and the environment and any
work done through the expansion or compression of the system results in a change in the internal
energy, ∆U, of the system. A change in internal energy results in measurable changes in the
macroscopic variables of the system such as the pressure, temperature, and volume. The
relationship between the change in internal energy, ∆U, energy Q, and the work W done on the
system is given by the first law of thermodynamics:

If a system undergoes a change from an initial state to a final state, then the change in the internal
energy ∆U is given by

∆𝑈 = 𝑈𝑓 − 𝑈𝑖 = 𝑄 + 𝑊

where Q is the energy exchanged between the system and the environment, and W is the work
done on the system. The quantity Q is positive when energy is transferred into the system and
negative when energy is removed from the system.

THERMAL PROCESSES

We have four most common processes. Each process corresponds to making one of the variables
in the ideal gas law a constant or assuming one of the three quantities in the first law of
thermodynamics is zero. The four processes are called isobaric (constant pressure), adiabatic (no
thermal energy transfer, or Q =0), isovolumetric (constant volume, corresponding to W= 0) and
isothermal (constant temperature, corresponding to DU = 0). Naturally, many other processes don’t
fall into one of these four categories, so they will be covered in a fifth category, called a general
process. What is essential in each case is to be able to calculate the three thermodynamic quantities
in the first law: the work W, the thermal energy transfer Q, and the change in the internal energy
∆U.

Isobaric Processes

An isobaric process is a process in which the pressure remains constant as the gas expands or is
compressed. An expanding gas does work on its environment, given by

𝑊𝐸𝑁𝑉 = 𝑃∆𝑉

Adiabatic Processes

In an adiabatic process, no energy enters or leaves the system by heat. Such a system is insulated,
thermally isolated from its environment. In general, however, the system isn’t mechanically
isolated, so it can still do work. A sufficiently rapid process may be considered approximately
adiabatic because there isn’t time for any significant transfer of energy by heat.
For adiabatic processes Q = 0, so the first law becomes ∆𝑈 = 𝑊 (adiabatic processes)

The work done during an adiabatic process can be calculated by finding the change in the internal
energy. Alternately, the work can be computed from a PV diagram.

Isovolumetric Processes

An isovolumetric process, sometimes called an isochoric process (which is harder to remember),

∆𝑈 = 𝑄 (isovolumetric process)

This result tells us that in an isovolumetric process, the change in internal energy of a system
equals the energy transferred to the system by heat.

Isothermal Processes

During an isothermal process, the temperature of a system doesn’t change. In an ideal gas the
internal energy U depends only on the temperature, so it follows that

∆𝑈 = 0 because ∆𝑇 = 0. In this case, the first law of thermodynamics gives

W = - Q (isothermal process)

We see that if the system is an ideal gas undergoing an isothermal process, the work done on the
system is equal to the negative of the thermal energy transferred to the system.