thermal conductivity

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thermal conductivity

[′thər·məl ‚kan‚dək′tiv·əd·ē]

(thermodynamics)

The heat flow across a surface per unit area per unit time, divided by the negative of the rate of change of temperature with distance in a direction perpendicular to the surface. Also known as coefficient of conductivity; heat conductivity.

thermal conductivity

The rate of transfer of heat by conduction; the amount of heat per unit of time per unit area that is conducted through a slab of unit thickness of a material if the difference in temperature between opposite faces is one degree of temperature; a property of the material itself, usually represented by the letter k and called k factor.

References in periodicals archive ?

If we divided the collective mortality into those caused by a number of specific factors, in an effort to find the hidden "key factor," the contribution of each k value to Var(K), hence the resemblance in pattern between [k.

Varley and Gradwell (1970), however, insisted on visual comparisons of the time-plotted graphs of all k values along with K to look for a k that was not only correlated with K but also contributed greatly to the variation in K.

The point is, however, that even index [Beta] (henceforth, the key factor index), which only takes into account the variances and covariances of the k values as the constituents of Var(K), provides no information about the central issues in the study of population dynamics, the pattern of population changes and its causal mechanism, as I now show.