Talk:Heat transfer coefficient

Wikipedia gives some typical numbers for the heat transfer coefficients for air:

Air - h = 10 to 100 W/(m2K) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer_coefficient

Since the martian atmosphere is thin then these numbers should be even smaller for mars. If the temperature difference is small (less then a degree) then the heat transfer is small. I wonder how much insulation it would take so that the outside wall temperature is near that of the martian atmosphere. In such cases perhaps most of the heat losses will be radiative. However, radiative heat losses could somewhat be balanced by the back radiation in the atmosphere. I wonder if the atmosphere is thick enough to have significant back radiation.

John Creighton 06:34, 5 September 2009 (UTC)John Creighton