Thermal conductivity the list of thermal conductivities. These should be considered approximate due to the uncertainties related to material definitions. High energy generation rates within electronics or turbines require the use of materials with high thermal conductivity such as copper "(see: Copper in heat exchangers)", aluminium, and silver. On the other hand, materials with low thermal conductance, such as polystyrene foam and fire brick, are used in building construction or in furnaces in an effort to slow the flow of heat, i.e. for insulation purposes. The reciprocal of thermal conductivity is "thermal resistivity", usually expressed in kelvin-meters per watt (K⋅m⋅W). For a
Thermal conductivity for thermal conductivity. Atomically, the thermal conductivity of a system is determined by how atoms composing the system interact. There are two different approaches for calculating the thermal conductivity of a system. Heat transport in both amorphous and crystalline dielectric solids is by way of elastic vibrations of the lattice (phonons). This transport mode is limited by the elastic scattering of acoustic phonons at lattice defects. These predictions were confirmed by the experiments of Chang and Jones on commercial glasses and glass ceramics, where the mean free paths were limited by "internal boundary scattering" to length scales of 10 cm