Heat Q, which has the SI unit of joule (J), is the quantity in mechanical engineering th...

Heat Q, which has the SI unit of joule (J), is the quantity in mechanical engineering that describes the transit of energy from one location to another. The equation for the flow of heat during the time interval Δt through an insulated wall is

where is the thermal conductivity of the material from which the wall is made, A and L are the wall’s area and thickness, and T_h – T_l is the difference (in degrees Celsius) between the high- and low-temperature sides of the wall. By using the principle of dimensional consistency, what is the correct dimension for thermal conductivity in the SI? The lowercase Greek character kappa () is a conventional mathematical symbol used for thermal conductivity. Appendix A summarizes the names and symbols of Greek letters.