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Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires pp 1–6Cite as

Conduction

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Definition

Conduction is the form of heat transfer that occurs within a stationary medium due to the presence of a temperature gradient.

Basic Concepts

Fire science requires a fundamental understanding of heat transfer. There are three basic mechanisms of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. Within the field of fire science, usually all three mechanisms are important, but for the different stages of fires or types of fires, one of the three mechanisms generally predominates over the other. Conduction is the form of heat transfer that occurs within a stationary medium due to the presence of a temperature gradient. Within fire science, this is often the predominant form of heat transfer in ignition and fire spread for solid combustible elements, as well as for the study of insulation materials.

In conduction, the heat flux is proportional to the spatial derivative of temperature and is governed by Fourier’s law of conduction. For a one-dimensional homogeneous and...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Francesco Restuccia

Authors
  1. Francesco Restuccia
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Francesco Restuccia .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. United States Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA

    Samuel L. Manzello

Section Editor information

  1. National Research Institute of Fire and Disaster, Tokyo, Japan

    Sayaka Suzuki PhD

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Restuccia, F. (2019). Conduction. In: Manzello, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_224-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_224-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51727-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51727-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference EngineeringReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

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