The BTU's necessary to raise 1 lb. of a substance by 1 degree F is known as the?

The term that defines the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 pound of a substance by 1 degree Fahrenheit is known as specific heat. This concept is crucial in understanding how different materials respond to heat energy. Specific heat is a property intrinsic to the substance, reflecting how much energy is needed for temperature changes due to heat transfer.

In practical terms, materials with a high specific heat can absorb a lot of heat without a significant rise in temperature, which is important in applications like climate control and energy efficiency. This is in contrast to substances with low specific heat, which will heat up more quickly with the same amount of energy.

The other options refer to different thermal properties: the coefficient of linear expansion relates to how much a material expands or contracts with temperature changes; sensible heat refers to heat that causes a change in temperature of a substance without changing its phase; and latent heat is the heat absorbed or released during a phase transition, such as melting or boiling, without a change in temperature. Understanding these distinctions is valuable in fields like thermodynamics and engineering.