SIMPLIFIED: "What is Thermal Conductivity? How is it Measured?"

Link to article: https://ctherm.com/resources/newsroom/blog/what-is-thermal-conductivity/ 

Note: The image above was taken from the original article.

The article linked above is about thermal conductivity. We should first start by defining this term. Thermal conductivity is basically a number that tells you how easily a material will be able to transfer heat to something else. Let’s now think about a real life example: if you placed your hand on a metal sheet versus a wooden table, which one would feel colder? It is going to be the metal sheet. Why is this the case? It is because the metal sheet has higher thermal conductivity, meaning it transfers heat from your hand quicker; the metal essentially “steals” heat from you faster than the wood, which is why metal has a higher thermal conductivity than wood does. If it was not clear by now, a higher thermal conductivity means that the material transfers heat quicker. 

Typically, materials with high thermal conductivity will be metals. Some examples include copper and aluminum. On the other hand, materials with low thermal conductivity are often called insulators, and include wood and styrofoam. 

Understanding thermal conductivity is important in engineering because there are situations where you want to move heat away quickly. For instance, when an electronic device is being used, there is heat that is created. We obviously don’t want that heat to stay trapped inside of that electric device, because it might cause certain parts in the device to either get damaged, or cause the device to stop working entirely. Therefore, an engineer might put a material like a metal inside the device that will transfer the heat quickly somewhere else. On the other hand, when an engineer is designing a refrigerator, the engineer will NOT want heat to get inside easily. Therefore, they will use materials with low thermal conductivity to ensure that heat does not get transferred quickly into the fridge.