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Well... Isaac Send a noteboard - 29/09/2011 08:18:10 PM
An electric heater (P=200 W) is inside a box (length of each side=20 cm, thickness of each side=1 cm). Thermal equilibrium is reached. Afterwards the temperatures of the outer walls and the inner walls are, respectively, 20 C and 60 C.
What is the heat flux from the box? What is the thermal conductivity of the box's material?

I'm sure this is a piece of cake for some of you. I've no idea what to do. So..what do I do? I assume this is about Fourier's law.


Assuming for a moment that a simple solution is allowed, and you don't need to worry about up, down, etc, you've got yourself a box .2 meters to a side, or .24 sq.m. in area form .2^2x6=.24 ... this is at equilibrium with a presumed infinite heat reservoir of 60C outside, meaning you are losing 200 W per .24 m or 833.33 W/m^2 and your insulator is .01 m thick.

Now assuming my brain hasn't fried from not doing this for years, the formula is kAT/x =Q/t where Q/t should be 833.33 W (for a square meter) and kAT/x where k is what we want an A is area and T is 60C-20C and x is 1 cm or .01m should be k(1)(40)/ (.01) so that 833=k40./.01 or k=833/4000=.2083 Watts per meter*kelvin or .2 W/mK which is fairly sane value so that's probably right, but I'd let one of the other physicists on the site confirm that since we have quite a few and as mentioned I haven't done it in a while

and redoing that where we just go with Q/t=200W=kAT/x would be =k(.24m2)(60-20C)/ (.01m)= 200W*.01m/ [(60-20C)*.24m2]=k=.2W/m / 40C*.24 = 2W/m / 9.6 Km2 = .2083 W/Km if that's a bit more intuitive and step by step, of course it may still be wrong, check with someone else.
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This message last edited by Isaac on 29/09/2011 at 08:24:53 PM
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Physics homework - 29/09/2011 06:34:01 PM 409 Views
It's more of a Transport problem than a Thermo problem. - 29/09/2011 07:45:11 PM 355 Views
Well... - 29/09/2011 08:18:10 PM 376 Views
Yessss. The answer's correct. Thank you thank you thank you *NM* - 29/09/2011 09:25:52 PM 135 Views
no he has no idea what he is talking about and just made all of that up - 29/09/2011 09:44:21 PM 339 Views

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