×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Thermophobic

Thermophobic

Thermophobic

(OP)
Is that the correct word to use to describe material that responds by moving away, when heat is applied to it?

RE: Thermophobic


Thermophobia is fear from heat. What about thermally repelled ?

RE: Thermophobic

The few times that I've come across thermophobic, it was in a biological context, relating to animals that were intolerant to heat, thus moved away from the heat source.

I've never seen it with respect to materials, but there's always a first time.  I would be against using that term because I don't think that a material is capable of fear.

I would find thermoreactive (neologism?) preferable to thermophobic.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

RE: Thermophobic

It would seem to make sense, when compared to hydrophobic and hydrophilic.

RE: Thermophobic

Agree with Cajun that the term is rather antropomorph.
What about thermofugal?

RE: Thermophobic

I agree with TheTick, he just beat me to posting it.

RE: Thermophobic

(OP)
Thanks everyone.
I too am uncomfortable attributing fear to a material. But as The Tick and UcfSE conjecture, it appears hydrophobic set a precedent.
The other suggestions don't work because they do not describe the phenomenon of moving away from a heat source, never towards it.
I thought of thermally evasive, but like 25362's thermally repelled, it just doesn't get the message that this material REACTS to heat by shrinking away from it.

RE: Thermophobic


how about:

athermoaffinitive

?

RE: Thermophobic

how about thermophoretic?
see also: THERMOPHORESIS

RE: Thermophobic


The one above is more related to heat pushing molecules around.  There's also thermokinetic, but it's more general (moves when hot).

You could go with a made-up word, like
thermoretractive

RE: Thermophobic

(OP)
Ivymike
Thermophoretic as used in the abstract of the paper "Thermophoretic Motion of a Spherical Aerosol Particle in a Cylindrical Pore"  Authors: Lu S-Y.1; Lee C-T.1. Seem to have a bet each way.

rhodie
Is there a reference?

RE: Thermophobic

(OP)
According to Encarta (UK)
Of or relating to. Having the nature of.
The people reading this paper will be familiar with thermo and understand phobia. I guess they need to understand what is meant in this context and thermophobic won't send them rushing to a dictionary.
Just saw your last post.
Thermoretractive will work well. Thanks ivymike

RE: Thermophobic

From www.thefreedictionary.com:

Thermophobic describes the tendency of an inorganic particle or organism to non-hot conditions, and by implication cold conditions.

Perhaps this is a good one for one the materials forums.

RE: Thermophobic

OK,
aerobic and anaerobic describes both the toward and away phenomena, so can we try thermic and athermic? though this may not be quite right since athermic refers to materials that reflect heat away.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: Thermophobic

Quote (25362):

Thermophobia is fear from heat.
By its etymology perhaps, but only in a world where Latin is not a dead language.  The Roman Empire has been gone since at least before the Kennedy administration, if not longer.  We need to look at actual usage.

A quick Google search immediately shows two contexts for thermophobic in a materials science sense.

Electronic components are thermophobic; they are susceptible to damage from high heat (especially soldering).

Many foams are thermophobic; they lose their "foamy" properties with higher temperatures.  Anyone who shaves with a blade has probably noticed this.

I could be the world's greatest underachiever, if I could just learn to apply myself.
http://www.EsoxRepublic.com-SolidWorks API VB programming help

RE: Thermophobic

My first thought was "What does foam have to do with shaving with a blade?"  Then I realized that lots of people use foamy stuff when shaving...  I never quite learned that trick.



RE: Thermophobic

(OP)
Thanks everyone once again. I decided to go with thermoretractive because I believe it works reasonably well in the relevant paragraph.....
"Discussion:  
(1)    Scorched material is evidence excessive heat was introduced at some point of time, presumably to assist removal of the XXXXXXX and at a temperature sufficient to cause partial carbonisation of part of the XXXXXX. There is no other reasonable explanation. The XXXXXX, is made of XXXXXXX which is slightly thermoretractive as can be evidenced when exposed well beyond maximum operating temperature. Being dense as well as solid, it is reasonable to expect part of the XXXXXX shall distort outwards to compensate a thermoretraction.".............

RE: Thermophobic

I'm not sure if I understand the moving away bit. Does it actually move or does it shrink? In the last case you could consider the alternative thermoCONtraction.

(Just trying to make you rewrite the paragraph again)

RE: Thermophobic

"as can be evidenced"

More evidence that some people think they can verb any noun they like.

RE: Thermophobic

proof -> to prove
evidence -> to evidence

Heh heh... nothing stops me! There's no such thing as can or cannot verb a noun, it's just a matter of habit. Why prove and not evidence?

RE: Thermophobic

==> The XXXXXX, is made of XXXXXXX which is slightly thermoretractive as can be evidenced when exposed well beyond maximum operating temperature.
I do find that sentence somewhat awkward.  How about -

The XXXXXX is made of XXXXXXX, which is slightly thermo-retractive as can be observed when it's exposed to temperatives beyond the operating maximum.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

RE: Thermophobic

I just wanted to see if I could post a reply that used the word "evidence" as a noun and itself also verbed a noun (the noun: "verb").

RE: Thermophobic


Whatever the selected word, xxxxxx would belong to the family of thermotropics as mentioned by JMW.

RE: Thermophobic

Retreat seems to be the best word to describe what the material is doing in the presence of heat. Some synonyms for retreat are retrocede and retrograde.

So how about thermoretrocedant? Or thermally retrocedant. Thermoretrogradiant? Thermally retrogradiant?

Just my $0.02!

RE: Thermophobic

Ahh... Even better. Thermorecedant (thermorecedENT?).

Very simple, yet still describing retreat from a heat source.

RE: Thermophobic

How about CRYOTROPIC

Good Luck
johnwm
________________________________________________________
To get the best from these forums read FAQ731-376 before posting

Steam Engine enthusiasts: www.essexsteam.co.uk

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources