Intensity (heat transfer)
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In the field of heat transfer, intensity of radiation I is a measure of the distribution of radiant heat flux per unit area and solid angle, in a particular direction, defined according to
where
- dA is the infinitesimal source area
- dq is the outgoing heat transfer from the area dA
- dω is the solid angle subtended by the infinitesimal 'target' (or 'aperture') area dAa
- θ is the angle between the source area normal vector and the line-of-sight between the source and the target areas.
Typical units of intensity are W·m-2·sr-1.
Intensity can sometimes be called radiance, especially in other fields of study.
The emissive power of a surface can be determined by integrating the intensity of emitted radiation over a hemisphere surrounding the surface:
For diffuse emitters, the emitted radiation intensity is the same in all directions, with the result that
- E = πI
The factor π (which really should have the units of steradians) is a result of the fact that intensity is defined to exclude the effect of reduced view factor at large values θ; note that the solid angle corresponding to a hemisphere is equal to 2π steradians.
Spectral intensity Iλ is the corresponding spectral measurement of intensity; in other words, the intensity as a function of wavelength.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Lienhard and Lienhard, A heat transfer textbook, 3rd Ed, 2008 (available for free online)
- J P Holman, Heat Transfer 9th Ed, McGraw Hill, 2002.
- Incropera & DeWitt, Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer, 4th Ed, Wiley, 1996.



