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Class: SpecificHeat

The SpecificHeat class is a subclass of Variable designed to represent the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of a unit mass of a substance by one degree. It stores all values internally in its base unit, kilojoules per kilogram-Kelvin (kJ/kg.K).

Supported Units

The following units are supported for initialization and conversion.

Unit str Conversion Factor to Kilojoules per Kilogram-Kelvin (kJ/kg.K)
kilojoules per kilogram-Kelvin kJ/kgK 1
Joules per kilogram-Kelvin J/kgK 0.001
calories per gram-Kelvin cal/gK 4.1868
British Thermal Units per pound-degree Fahrenheit BTU/lbF 9.7423
kilocalories per kilogram-Kelvin kcal/kgK 4.1868

Class Reference

class SpecificHeat(value, units='kJ/kgK')

A class for handling specific heat capacity measurements with automatic unit conversion.

Parameters:

  • value : float or int
    The numeric value of the specific heat. Must be a non-negative number.
  • units : str, default='kJ/kgK'
    The unit of the provided value. Must be one of the supported units.

Raises:

  • ValueError : If value is negative.
  • TypeError : If units is not a valid unit.

Examples: 

# Create a SpecificHeat object of 4.186 kJ/kgK  
>>> cp1 = SpecificHeat(4.186, "kJ/kgK")

# Create a SpecificHeat object of 1.0 cal/gK  
>>> cp2 = SpecificHeat(1.0, "cal/gK")

Properties

Property Type Description
.value float The numeric value of the specific heat, always in kilojoules per kilogram-Kelvin (kJ/kg.K). This is the internal representation used for all calculations.
.original_value float The numeric value as provided during initialization.
.original_unit str The unit as provided during initialization.

Methods

to(target_unit)

Returns a new SpecificHeat object converted to the target_unit. The original object remains unchanged.

Parameters:

  • target_unit : str
    The unit to convert to. Must be one of the supported units.

Returns:

  • SpecificHeat
    A new SpecificHeat object with the same value, represented in the target unit.

Raises:

  • TypeError : If target_unit is not a valid unit.

Examples: 

# Initialize a specific heat of 4.186 kJ/kgK  
>>> water_cp = SpecificHeat(4.186, "kJ/kgK")

# Convert to BTU/lbF  
>>> water_cp_btu = water_cp.to("BTU/lbF")

>>> print(water_cp_btu)  
1.79159 BTU/lbF

String Representation

  • __str__(self)
    Returns a human-readable string representation of the specific heat, rounded to six decimal places, using its original value and unit.
  • __repr__(self)
    Returns a string representation suitable for developers and debugging.