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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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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