Perspective: Some Research Needs in Convective Heat Transfer for Industry

Several presentations at the recent ASME Fluids Engineering Division Symposium on Basic Research Needs in Fluid Mechanics addressed convective heat transfer and topics within this area. (By definition, convection can be considered to be energy transfer by fluid motion, so convective heat transfer is an important field in fluid mechanics and vice versa). There have also been surveys of research needs in heat transfer that include convective processes. However, although about a third of the group leaders in the recent survey by Jacobs and Hartnett were outside the academic community, there still seems to be a lack of communication between the academic community and industrial users. Consequently, the present contribution will attempt to concentrate on basic needs relating to convective heat transfer as perceived by industry; in a sense, the authors attempt to swing the pendulum in the other direction by emphasizing users interests. Primarily, the present paper treats the results of an ad hoc survey of colleagues from industrial and national laboratories. After describing the approach and some related philosophy, the authors describe a few examples of applications and their related research needs to give the flavor of the difficulties and end with a summary of some of themore » recurring themes evident in the raw data.« less