From TheBestLinks.com
The emissivity of a material (usually written <math>e<math>) is the ratio of energy radiated to energy radiated by a black body at the same temperature. It is a measure of a material's ability to absorb and radiate energy. A true black body would have an <math>e=1<math> while any real object would have <math>e<1<math>.
This emissivity depends on factors such as temperature, emission angle, and wavelength. However, a typical engineering assumption is to assume that a surface's spectral emissivity and absorptivity do not depend on wavelength, so that the emissivity is a constant. This is known as the grey body assumption. When dealing with non-black surfaces, the deviations from ideal black body behavior are determined by both the geometrical structure and the chemical composition, and follow Kirchhoff's Law: emissivity equals absorptivity, so that an object that does not absorb all incident light will also emit less radiation than an ideal black body.
See also
Related links
Top visited
0 of
0 links
[no links posted yet]
>> place link >>
Discussion
Last posted
0 of
0 messages
[no messages posted yet]
>> post message >>
Watch
You can
add this article to your own "watchlist" and receive e-mail notification about all changes in this page.
