Faculty of Engineering

Port Said university

Chemical Engineering Department

Heat transfer and its applications

Prepared by
Maged Husain Abdelhamid
2nd year – chemical engineering department
19 February 2024

Presented to
Dr. Ahmed Abdallah
 Meaning of negative sign in Fourier’s law

In Fourier’s Law, the negative sign is crucial because it indicates the di-
rection of heat flow. The law states that heat flows from regions of higher
temperature to regions of lower temperature. Mathematically, Fourier’s
Law in its differential form is expressed as:

𝛥𝑇
Q=−KA
𝑑𝑋

where:
(Q) is the amount of heat transferred through the material in Watts,
(k) is the thermal conductivity,
(ΔT) is the temperature difference,
(dX) is the thickness of the material.

Here we have taken coordinate system such that going from left to right
is in the +ve x-direction .
K is material property which is always +ve.
There is two cases in one dimension heat transfer:

Case 1 (T1 > T2) : That means (T2 - T1) = -ve and dx = +ve. (K and A)
will always be positive then Q will turn out to be +ve from the formula
so heat will transfer in the direction which we have taken +ve means from
left to right.

Case 2 (T1 < T2) : That means (T2 - T1) = +ve and dx = +ve and (K and
A) will always be positive then Q will turn out to be -ve from the formula
so heat will transfer in the direction which we have taken -ve means from
right to left.

So because of that -ve sign only, in case 1 (T1 > T2) heat transfer will
occur from T1 to T2 and in case 2 (T1 < T2) heat transfer will occur from
T2 to T1. Which is what second law of thermodynamics tells us that heat
transfer will occur from high temperature to low temperature if there are
no external devices (like refrigerator etc).