Heat Transfer:

Potential
Questions and
Answers
By:
Tarun Kumar Aseri
(Asst. Prof.)
Mechanical Engineering Department
Engineering College Ajmer

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Instructions
• Always try to support your answer with labelled figure, graph and/or
equation (if any)
• Separately, factor(s) that are responsible
• If available, write its various types
• If possible, provide probable applications
• Try to write meaning along with unit of each symbol

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• What is "Fourier Law of Conduction"?
• The rate of flow of heat through a single
homogeneous solid is directly proportional
to the area of the section at right angles to
the direction of heat flow, and to the change
of temperature with respect to the length of
the path of the heat flow (temperature
gradient).

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
For cylinder
• What do you mean by critical radius
of insulation?
• The critical radius of insulation is the
thickness of insulation at which the rate
of heat transfer through the body is
maximum. It means that the rate of heat
transfer increases with an increase in
the thickness of insulation up to the
critical radius of insulation. For Sphere

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• Define fin effectiveness and efficiency.
• Effectiveness of fin (εfin):
• It is defined as the ratio of the actual heat transfer that takes
place from the fin to the heat that would be dissipated from
the same surface area without fin.
• Efficiency of fin (ηeff)

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• What is Biot number? What is its physical significance?
• The Biot number is the ratio of the internal resistance of a body to heat
conduction to its external resistance to heat convection.
• Physical Significance: The Biot number is more likely to be larger for poorly
conducting solids since such bodies have larger resistances against heat
conduction.

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• What is Wien's Displacement Law?
• The wavelength of thermal radiation
most emitted by a blackbody is inversely
proportional to the absolute temperature
of the body.

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• Define effectiveness of heat exchanger.
• The effectiveness (ϵ) of a heat exchanger is defined as the ratio of the actual
heat transfer to the maximum possible heat transfer.

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• Define a geometrical or shape factor.
• A shape factor is a measurement of the direct exchange of heat energy between
two surfaces.
• The surfaces can be a rectangle, a circle, a cylinder, a cone, or some other
basic geometric configurations.
• The surfaces can be placed in parallel, in perpendicular, or inclining to each
other at a specified angle.
• The shape factor is denoted by the symbol Fij, where i indicates radiating
surface and j indicates receiving surface.

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• How are heat exchangers classified?

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• Define Nusselt number, Prandtl number and Grashof number
Nusselt number: the ratio of
convection heat transfer to fluid
conduction heat transfer under the
same conditions.
Prandtl number: the ratio of
momentum diffusivity (kinematic
viscosity) to thermal diffusivity.

Grashof number: Ratio of buoyant

forces to viscous forces and is used to
determine the flow regime of fluid
boundary layers in laminar systems
Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering
Short Questions and Answers
• What is Lumped Capacity?
• The lumped thermal capacity model is the simplest transient (unsteady) heat
conduction approach.
• In this model, the temperature of the solid body is a function of the time only,
which means that the temperature is assumed to be spatially independent
(uniform).
• Lumped system analysis is exact when Bi = 0 and approximate when Bi > 0.
• It is generally accepted that lumped system analysis is applicable if Bi ≤ 0.1

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

 • What is heat transfer?
• Heat transfer is a discipline of thermal engineering that
concerns the generation, use, conversion, and exchange of
thermal energy between physical systems.
• Heat transfer is classified into various mechanisms, such as
thermal conduction, thermal convection, thermal radiation, and
Short transfer of energy by phase changes

Questions
and Answers

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• Convective heat transfer depends on which factors?
• Flow velocity,
• Availability of Turbulence,
• Thermo-physical properties of Flowing fluid,
• Shape and size of Geometry
• Temperature gradient

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• Explain Newton's law of cooling.
• The rate of heat loss of a body is directly proportional to the difference in
the temperatures between the body and its environment.

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• Write formula for radiation heat transfer between two surfaces.
• Radiation heat transfer is the process by which the thermal energy is
exchanged between two surfaces obeying the laws of electromagnetics.

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• Write formula of LMTD for counter flow heat exchanger.

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• Construct the pool boiling curve.

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• What is drop wise condensation?
• In dropwise condensation the
condensate liquid collects in the
form of countless droplets of varying
diameters on the condensing surface,
instead of forming a continuous film,
and does not wet the solid cooling
surface.

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions
and Answers
• Construct the black body.

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• Write and explain Stefan
Boltzmann law in brief.
• the total radiant heat power
emitted from a surface is
proportional to the fourth power
of its absolute temperature.
• The emissive power of a black
body, according to Stefan-
Boltzmann, is proportional to
absolute temperature to the fourth
power

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• Write expression of diffusion equation.

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering

Short Questions and Answers
• What is fouling factor?
• After a period of operation the heat-transfer surfaces for a heat exchanger may
become coated with various deposits present in the flow systems, or the
surfaces may become corroded as a result of the interaction between the fluids
and the material used for construction of the heat exchanger.
• This coating represents an additional resistance to the heat flow, and thus
results in decreased performance.
• The overall effect is usually represented by a fouling factor, or fouling
resistance (Rf)

Prepared by: Tarun K. Aseri, (Asst. Prof.), Mechanical Engineering