Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Volumetric heat capacity
Summary
The volumetric heat capacity of a material is the heat capacity of a sample of the substance divided by the volume of the sample. It is the amount of energy that must be added, in the form of heat, to one unit of volume of the material in order to cause an increase of one unit in its temperature. The SI unit of volumetric heat capacity is joule per kelvin per cubic meter, J⋅K−1⋅m−3.
The volumetric heat capacity can also be expressed as the specific heat capacity (heat capacity per unit of mass, in J⋅K−1⋅kg−1) times the density of the substance (in kg/L, or g/mL).
This quantity may be convenient for materials that are commonly measured by volume rather than mass, as is often the case in engineering and other technical disciplines. The volumetric heat capacity often varies with temperature, and is different for each state of matter. While the substance is undergoing a phase transition, such as melting or boiling, its volumetric heat capacity is technically infinite, because the heat goes into changing its state rather than raising its temperature.
The volumetric heat capacity of a substance, especially a gas, may be significantly higher when it is allowed to expand as it is heated (volumetric heat capacity at constant pressure) than when is heated in a closed vessel that prevents expansion (volumetric heat capacity at constant volume).
If the amount of substance is taken to be the number of moles in the sample (as is sometimes done in chemistry), one gets the molar heat capacity (whose SI unit is joule per kelvin per mole, J⋅K−1⋅mol−1).
The volumetric heat capacity is defined as
where is the volume of the sample at temperature , and is the amount of heat energy needed to raise the temperature of the sample from to . This parameter is an intensive property of the substance.
Since both the heat capacity of an object and its volume may vary with temperature, in unrelated ways, the volumetric heat capacity is usually a function of temperature too. It is equal to the specific heat of the substance times its density (mass per volume) , both measured at the temperature .
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Ontological neighbourhood
Related courses (18)
MSE-100: Materials structure
Ce cours met en relation les différents niveaux de structuration de la matière avec les propriétés mécaniques, thermiques, électriques, magnétiques et optiques des matériaux.
Des travaux pratiques en
ME-341: Heat and mass transfer
This course covers fundamentals of heat transfer and applications to practical problems. Emphasis will be on developing a physical and analytical understanding of conductive, convective, and radiative
MSE-171: Materials
Une introduction à la science des matériaux appliquée aux matériaux de construction courants, en particulier le béton et les métaux. Description de leur fabrication, leurs comportements mécanique et t
Related concepts (11)
Heat capacity
Heat capacity or thermal capacity is a physical property of matter, defined as the amount of heat to be supplied to an object to produce a unit change in its temperature. The SI unit of heat capacity is joule per kelvin (J/K). Heat capacity is an extensive property. The corresponding intensive property is the specific heat capacity, found by dividing the heat capacity of an object by its mass. Dividing the heat capacity by the amount of substance in moles yields its molar heat capacity.
Molar heat capacity
The molar heat capacity of a chemical substance is the amount of energy that must be added, in the form of heat, to one mole of the substance in order to cause an increase of one unit in its temperature. Alternatively, it is the heat capacity of a sample of the substance divided by the amount of substance of the sample; or also the specific heat capacity of the substance times its molar mass. The SI unit of molar heat capacity is joule per kelvin per mole, J⋅K−1⋅mol−1.
Thermodynamic equations
Thermodynamics is expressed by a mathematical framework of thermodynamic equations which relate various thermodynamic quantities and physical properties measured in a laboratory or production process. Thermodynamics is based on a fundamental set of postulates, that became the laws of thermodynamics. One of the fundamental thermodynamic equations is the description of thermodynamic work in analogy to mechanical work, or weight lifted through an elevation against gravity, as defined in 1824 by French physicist Sadi Carnot.