Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Fourier law
Conservation of energy
The geotherm
Heat flux is the flow per unit area and per unit time of heat. It is
directly proportional to the temperature gradient.
Units:
q is in [Wm-2]
k is in [Wm-1K-1]
40-90 mWm-2.
Heat transfer: measurements
There is a systematic
dependence of the surface
heat flow on the age of the
sea floor.
Ignoring terms higher than the first order term, leads to:
dq d 2T
q(y + dy) - q(y) = dy = dy-k 2 = 0.
dy dy
Thus: d 2T
= 0.
dy 2
Heat transfer: conservation of energy in 1-dimension
If there's nonzero net heat flow per unit area out of the slab, this
heat must be generated internally in the slab. In that case:
dq d 2T
q(y + dy) - q(y) = dy = dy-k 2 = dyrH,
dy dy
where:
H is the heat production rate per unit mass
is the density
Starting with:
d 2T
rH + k 2 = 0,
dy
and integrating once gives:
dT
rHy = -k + C1.
dy
The 1st b.c. requires that: C1=q0, leading to:
dT
rHy = -k + q0 .
dy
Additional integration gives:
y2
rH = -kT + q0 y + C2.
2
The 2nd b.c. requires that C2=kT0, giving:
q0 rH 2
T = T0 + y - y .
k 2k
Heat transfer: geotherm
The contribution of the internal heat to the heat flow at the surface
is: q =r H h
c c c c
It follows that the heat production per unit mass, H, is larger near
the surface and decreases with depth.
Starting with:
d 2T
k 2 + r H 0 exp (-y / hr ) = 0
dy
B.C.: q -qm as y
Integration yields:
dT
k - hr r H 0 exp (-y / hr ) = -q - hr r H 0 exp (-y / hr ) = C
dy
Thus: C = qm
At y=0:
Eastern US
q = -qm - r H 0 hr