Uncertainty propagation analysis in engineering systems constitutes a significant challenge. To effectively solve the uncertain heat conduction problem with multiple random inputs, a random collocation method (RCM) and a modified random collocation method (MRCM) are established based on the spectral analysis theory. In both methods, the truncated high-order polynomial series is adopted to approximate the temperature responses with respect to random parameters, and the eventual probabilistic moments are derived by using the orthogonal relationship of polynomial bases. In the pivotal process of calculating the expansion coefficients, RCM evaluates the deterministic solutions directly on full tensor product grids, whereas the Smolyak sparse grids are reconstructed in MRCM to avoid the huge computational cost caused by high dimensions. Comparing the results with traditional Monte Carlo simulation, two numerical examples verify the remarkable accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed methods for random temperature field prediction in engineering. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.