Energy is defined as the capacity of a substance to do work. It is a property of the substance and it can be transferred by interaction of a system and its surroundings. The student would have encountered these interactions during the study of Thermodynamics. However, Thermodynamics deals with the end states of the processes and provides no information on the physical mechanisms that caused the process to take place. Heat Transfer is an example of such a process. A convenient definition of heat transfer is energy in transition due to temperature differences. Heat transfer extends the Thermodynamic analysis by studying the fundamental processes and modes of heat.
