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Class: ThermalConductivity

The ThermalConductivity class is a subclass of Variable designed to represent a material's ability to conduct heat. It ensures accurate calculations by storing all values internally in its base SI unit, Watts per meter-Kelvin (W/m.K).

Supported Units

The following units are supported for initialization and conversion. The class handles the necessary formula-based conversions to and from the base unit.

Unit str Conversion Factor to Watts per Meter-Kelvin (W/m.K)
Watts per meter-Kelvin W/mK 1
kilowatts per meter-Kelvin kW/mK 1000
calories per second-centimeter-degree Celsius cal/scmC 418.4
British Thermal Units per hour-foot-degree Fahrenheit BTU/hftF 1.730735

Class Reference

class ThermalConductivity(value, units='W/mK')

A class for handling thermal conductivity measurements with automatic unit conversion.

Parameters:

  • value : float or int
    The numeric value of the thermal conductivity. Must be a non-negative number.
  • units : str, default='W/mK'
    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 ThermalConductivity object for a value of 0.5 W/mK  
>>> k1 = ThermalConductivity(0.5, "W/mK")

# Create a ThermalConductivity object of 1 kW/mK  
>>> k2 = ThermalConductivity(1, "kW/mK")

Properties

Property Type Description
.value float The numeric value of the thermal conductivity, always in Watts per meter-Kelvin (W/m.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 ThermalConductivity 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:

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

Raises:

  • TypeError : If target_unit is not a valid unit.

Examples: 

# Initialize a thermal conductivity of 0.5 W/mK  
>>> k_W = ThermalConductivity(0.5)

# Convert to BTU/hftF  
>>> k_BTU = k_W.to("BTU/hftF")

>>> print(k_BTU)  
0.289356 BTU/hftF

String Representation

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