ASME lnternational

San Antonio Section

Executive Committee (2000-01)
Chaimm
I. Mchael Hanis, 353-3631
Jmharis@cps-sao<. om
Yice-Chaimm
Amando Carmona, CPS, 353-2648
ACmona@cps-satx.om
Treuurer
Keitl Clutter, UTSA, 458-5511
Islufter@utsa. edu
kcretary
Robert Melenyzer, (830) 37 2-9626
,ldvisor
Ruell Solberg, Jr., SwRI, Ret. 684-1326
Solberg!.@cme.org
Newsletter Editor
Frank Do<ige, SwRi, 522-23
Fdodge@swi.org
Nominaliorc
Mchael Harris, CPS, 353-363 I
Programs
Dean Winter, SwRI, 522-2681
dwintcr@swi.edu
Regislration
Hudson G. Bou, SWRI, Ret., 684-2275
I{omce E. Staph, SWRI, Ret.,684-1764
Special Projects
Stephen Juhasz, SwRI, 684-1765
llphed@swbell.ner
Section Archivisr
I- Michael Haris, CPS, 353-3631
Student Scholarship
Amir Kaimi, UTSA, 458-55 l4
&ii@utsa.edu
ATSA Student Section Advisor
Keith Clutter, UTSA, 458-551 I
HONORS AND AWARDS BANQUET
Speaker:
DR. JOHN LIENHARD
THURSDAY, APzuL i8,2OO1 DATE:
TIMES: 5:45 - 6:00 PM
6:00 - 6:45
7:00 - 9:00
Greeting
Dinner
Program & Awards
PLACE: The Skyline Room, Trinis University Campus, Coates Student
Center, opposite Alamo Stadium, and adjacent to the Fountain.
DINNER: Buffet Sle: Southwest Cookout (BBQ Beef, Sausage and Chicken, etc.)
COST:
$10.00 PER PERSON ($5 for ASME Student Members)
RESERVATIONS: A must! call Rose Lucas 522-2679 by noon, Thursday, April 18.
Attn.: (We are obliged to pay for all reserved meals.)
PROGRAM and SPEAKER
"The
Wildcard: Creatiyify and {Jnpredictability,
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. John H. Lienhard is the M.D. Anderson Professor (Emeritus) of Mechanical
Engineering and History at the University of Houston where he has taught since 1980.
Prior to this date he had been a facuity member at Washington State University and the
University of Kentucky.
Dr. Lienhard holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California
at Berkeley. He earned his M.S. and B.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the
University of Washington and Oregon State College, respectively. Known for his research
in the thermal sciences as well as in cultural histoy. He has published several books and
has auth.ored several hundred technical papers. He is an Honorary Member of the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and a fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Dr. Lienhard is the author and voice of more than 1,500 episodes of The Engines of Our
Ingenuity, a daily public radio series about machines and the people who created them.
Transcripts of all episodes are available on the Engines web site at www.uh.edu/engines.
For his work on Engines, ASME awarded him the 1998 Engineer Historian award and the
1989 Ralph Coates Roe Award for contributions to the public understanding of
technology. American Women in Radio and Television honored him with thel991
Portrait Division Award. In November 2000, Dr. Lienhard received the ASME Church
Award for his contribution and commitment to the engineering field. He has also recently
published his book, Engines of our Ingenuity: An Engineer Lool<s at Technologt and
Culture, available through Oxford University Press.
In 1991 the University of Houston presented Dr. Lienhard with its highest faculty honor,
the Esther Farfel Award for excellence in research, teaching and service to his profession
and the community.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers
HEAT TRANSFER
Notes on the origins
and
Evolution
of the Suhect
of tteat Transfer
.,We
are
picking fruit from an orcharcl that we have been cultvating for a long
me, more tnn we are cultvating next
year's orchard. lt s easy to let the heaft
go
ot of our work when we do this- We are at our best when we mix abstract
and applied thinking..."
John H. Lenhard
Dept. of Mechanrcal Engineering
University of Houston
Houston, Texas
and Chairman, ASME Committee K-8
ol the Heat Transfer Div.
:'.Josepfr
gtack
died quietly in his chair on November 26,
179, with:a cup of tea balanced in his lap. Five years
earlier, Antoine Lavoisier's head had been
publicly re-
moved by the French Revolutionary Tribunal. These two
men defined our understanding of heat phenomena on
the eve of the 19th century."
The Turn of a Century
/.iIUNE'.1983 1 NIECHANICAL. ENGINEERING
1ck
rht
w*'
. Thu
i
omesj
E new;
led tti:
Dout
M
whs
being
plts u
t how
to the
lutions were finished and the world was a very differ-
ent place.
Thompson moved about this changing Europe with
Byzantine guile. He was a master of exaggeration,
par-
laying every minor success into a major accomplishment.
He immediately established himself on the right hand of
the English Secretary to the Colonies. He raised a regi-
ment and returned to fght the Americans briefly in North
Carolina
(against Marion's Raiders) and in Long lsland.
He became a Fellow of the Royal Society for his fairly
straightforward studies of ballistics and gun powder. He
worked with the British Navy on signal systems and ship
design. ln 1783 he left England and took up the post of
aide to the Elector of Bavaria. ln this position his efforts
produced a record of really solid accomplishment that
won him the title of Count in 1792. For his new title he
took the name of his old town of Rumford, N.H.
Rumford's instincts for political intrigue and his aspira-
tions to scientific respectability might better have been
placed in the courts and salons of 18th-century France,
but his place in history was gained by his 19th-century
genius for social reform and thermal systems develop-
ment. He was an elitist, determined to make the poor
useful and happy by attending to their basic needs' He
set up poorhouses and public works programs in Munich,
and then concerned himself with the elemental problems
of food, warmth, and light in lhese
institutions. His ac-
complishments included :
. countless designs and innovations in stoves, ovens,
and lighting systems, and in their cleanliness and fuel
economy.
his famous cannon-boring experiments, which led
him to conclude about heat:
"Anything which any in-
sulated (system) can continue to furnish without limi-
tation cannot possibly be a material substance and it
appears to me extremely difficult, if not impossible, to
form any distinct idea of any thing, capable of being
excited and communicated in the manner the heat was
excited and communicated in these experiments, except
it be motion."
. a set of experimets that led him to assert that the
most imporlant element in an insulating material was the
entrapped air pockets that it contained; and other experi-
ments that showed how important convective currents
were in the transmission of heat through fluids.
r the creation of the enormous
"peoples park" called
the English Garden, which remains the beautiful center-
piece of Munich today.
Black lived long enough to quote "Sir Benjamin
Thompson's" results side by side with those of Cleghorn.
He was quite clear in observing that the transmission of
heat must be, in some sense, the transmission of a mode
of motion. He was also clear on another point that Rum-
fordffhompson had failed to understand-namely, that
cold was not an opposite quantity to heat, but rather the
mere lack of it.
No one in 1800 quite understood that heat and work
were interchangeable, unless it was Rumford, and he
faileci to emphasize the enormous significance of the
fact. lt was generally recognized that heat was related to
work and friction, but the idea that caloric could not be
created stopped most people from looking for a direct
equivalence between heat and work. Rumford showed
22 / JUNE 1983 / MECHANICAL ENGINEERNG
that by doing work one could create heat indefinitely,
but
he did not advance a numerical equivalence.'However,
subsequent students were able to infer a rough value
from his data.
One other extremely important product of 18th-century
revolution was 19th-century education. Between his re-
turn to England in 1799, and 1802, Rumford's chief et
forts went to forming the Royal lnstitution of Great Britain.
He had meant to form a school for educating the lower
classes in technology, although it rather quickly reverted
to a higher social stratum. The French Revolutionary
government had also formed an Ecole Polytechnique in
'1795.
Both institutions had a great dealto say about heat
transfer, but during its first 30 years the Ecole Polytech-
nique set the very foundations of the subject.
The French
Napoleon was a strong supporter of the Ecole Poly-
technique and when he invaded Egypt at the turn of the
century he included a young professor of mathematics
{rom the school in his entourage, Joseph Fourier, who
held severaladministrative
posts in the campaign. Fouri-
er began working on the problem of heat flow while he
was in Egypt, and continued when he returned to Gre-
noble in 1802 as Prefect of the region of lsre. By 1803
he had failed in his attempts to describe conduction
among a series of connected elements. (This is what we
do more successfully on the computer, today). He might
have done no more, but in 1804, Joseph Biot suggested
another approach.
Biot recognized that the problem should reduce to
a second order linear partial differential equation; but
he failed to write the equation, and he did not see that
one had to impose independent boundary conditions on
it. Fourier appears to have been reenergized by Biot's
insight. He returned to the problem and by 1805 pro-
duced an 8O-page manuscript that included the differen-
tial equation:
-il
ksr,.
k:
ffi
'iT
i'
,i
(constant) v2T =
tT
*
n,
The problem with this equation is that it includes the heat
convection effect, hT, which, we realize today, must be
administered as a boundary condition.
Fourier became aware of this weakness and emended
it during the next two years. His biographer, l. Grattan-
Guinness, has observed that
"in
making this correction
Fourier achieved his master stroke, the great inspiration
from which not only do all his mathematical successes
spring, but also the whole approach to'modern' mathe-
matical physics." Fourier submitted a new 234-page
manuscript to the lnstitut de France in Paris in'1807.
ln
it he did something more impoftant than determining
how
to formulate the laws governing the flow sf heat in a solid'
He did something beyond updating Bernoulli's trigono'
metric series to slve ihe equation. He actually
provided
us with the strategies that would be basic to the entire
field of continuum mechanics, of which heat conduction
and convection are a major part. These are the identifica'
tion of field differential equations and boundary condi'
tions, the technique of separation of variables, and
the
idea of representing solutions in the form of series
ol
arbitrary functions.
in 1t
m3m
durin
such
spec
dispr
SETVi
it fin
ple, i
pletin
that
,
lion
Victr
Wt
techr
serv(
the r
nolo
not t
: The
,to h
, ado
iTh
gran
'Fren
the e
SECC
heat
'one
ly,
but
ilever,
valr
entury
'Us
re-
ief
ef-
]ritain.
lower
verted
ionary
que
in
I heat
ech-
finally published in 1822 in the form of a monograph, and
in
'1824
and 1826 as a lengthy two-part article in the
memoirs of the French Academy. These were years
during which he fought serious resistance offered by
such famous people as Poisson and Lagrange. ln retro-
spect we can probably claim that the very process of
dispute and argument not only honed Fourier's work, but
served to extend and intensify its influence. By the time
it finally appeared in the Academy memoirs, for exam-
ple, C.L.M.H. Navier and S.D. Poisson were also com-
pleting the formulations of viscous fluid field equations
that would eventually be needed to predict heat convec-
tion as well.
Victorian Science
We might ask .ryhat sort of bedfellows science and
technology really are. Few of us doubt that science
serves technology and that technology provides grist for
the mills of science. Still, the greatness of English tech-
nology in the late 18th and early 19th centuries seems
not to have been accompanied by great English science.
The greatness of French science in particular seems
to have been accompanied by a peculiar disinterest in
adopting the
"English
revolution" during this time.
The English plunged ahead building greater and
grander heat engines "by-guess-and-by-God," while the
Frenchman Sadi Carnot contemplated heat engines in
the abslract. ln 1824, Carnot developed the notion of the
second law of thermodynamics using the caloric theory of
heat, yet he prefaced his work with the words
"Every-
one knows that heat can produce motion." Twenty{hree
wr;:'e* ,
years later, James Prescott Joule, who was educated
privately---outside of the English scientific academies-
completed the task that Rumford had begun. He con-
firmed that the converse was true by measuring (within a
fraction of a percent) exactly how much heat a foot-
pound of work would yield.
The year was 1847, the world was on the brink of
widespread wars and upheavals once more, and the
English had already started to gain scientific ascendancy
where the French had left off . Joule put in place the last
foundation stone upon which the new subject of thermo-
dynamics would be erected by Kelvin and Clausius. The
English science that followed in the stable Victorian peri-
od was remarkable in its vitality and much o{ it was basic
to the science of heat transfer. lt was centered upon
Cambridge University.
The first new stars of English mathemalical physics
were Lord Kelvin and the lrishman, George Stokes.
Stokes spent his life at Cambridge and his contribu-
tons to fluid mechanics poured forth from 1841 until
'1901.
One of his earliest contributions was an inde-
pendent, and more modern, formulation of the
"Navier-
Stokes" equations. By the late 1850s there appeared in
this group one of the great geniuses of all time, James
Clerk Maxwell.
Maxwell set the foundations of the kinetic theory of
gases in the 1860s. lt was a time when many-maybe
most-scientists and engineers still thought of heat as
ealoric, and Maxwell provided a succinct and precise
description of the mechanism of heat propagation in
gases. By predicting how energy was passed from mole-
cule to molecule during collisions,.he showed us what it
Poly-
of the
natics
',
who
Fouri-
rile he
t Gre-
'
'1803
uction
lat we
might
ested
lce
t'
pro-
Museum model of Rumford's (Thompson's) cannon-boring experiment
His paper actually suffered years of delay before it was
n; b
ie that
lns on
Biot's
1:-?;iltsffit4
MECHANICAL ENGINEERNG / JUNE 1983 / 23
\
{*:
rsfrr}
,eally meant to call heat a mode of motion. He published
a textbook lilled Theory of Heat in 1871, the same year
he accepted the chair of experimental physics at the
Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. When he died of
cancer eight years later he was only 47 years of age.
Maxwell was succeeded at the Cavendish Laboratory
by John Wm. Strutt-better known to us as Lord Ray-
leigh. He held the chair until 1884 and then moved to the
Royal lnstitution of Great Britain, which Rumford had
founded over 80 years earlier. From the viewpoint of the
field of heat transfer, Rayleigh (tike Stokes) did a vast
amount of the preparatory fluid mechanics that would
soon serve all areas of heat convection.
The English science of the late 1gth century was soon
joined
by powerful
German and Austran contributions
and by the American engineer J. Willard Gibbs, who was
an entire scientific movement in himself. The moody
Austrian, Ludwig Boltzmann, finished what Maxwell had
begun. Beginning in the 1870s he advanced the kinetic
.theory of gases to the point at which it rationalized equi-
Iibrium thermodynamics completely and provided
a far
more powerful capability for predicting
transport phenom-
ena than Maxwell had reached.
ln 1884 Boltzmann turned his attention to the sub-
ject
of thermal radiation, which had been attracting in-
creasing attention since G. Kirchhoff showed the reltion
between emittance and absorbtance, in 1860. By 1879,
another Austrian, Josef Stefan, had shown experimental-
-
ly that the heat radiated from a hot, thermally black
object, should rise with the fourth power of its abso-
lute temperature. Boltzmann used a very clever heat-
engine argument to prove that this was exactly true.
The Stefan-Boltzmann law, of course, tells us nothing
24 / JUNE 1983 / !.{Ef,Hrir+icAt tN*tidrrXilG
about the distribution of emitted energy in wavelength,
but in 1889 the German physicists O. Lummer and E.
Pringsheim produced measurements of this distribution,
which were well defined and fairly screamed for theoreti-
cal interpretation.
The German physicist Willy Wien provided an imper-
fectly rationalized distribution law in 1896. lt involved
experimental constants and it slightly underpredicted the
energy carried by the longer wavelengths. Lord Rayleigh
attacked the problem next, and in 1900 showed how to
obtain the distribution using classical statistical mechan-
ics. His prediction was one of the grand failures of Vic-
torian science. lt bore no resemblance to the experimen-
tal data at any but the longest wavelengths, yet it was
a perfectly correct use of the by then well-established
Boltzmann statistics.
Max Planck's explanation of radiation followed a year
later. He discovered, almost by accident, that if he as-
sumed radiant energy could only occupy discrete energy
levels, then the classical prediction
could be made to
work perfectly. lt took another three decades for scien-
tists to make sense of Planck's insight and to establsh
our modern concepts of quantum mechanics. By then,
however, the subject of heat transfer had finalty separat-
ed itself from physics and gained a life of its own.
From Science to Technology
Those of us whose primary identification is with the
subject of heat transfer today see ourselves more
as
technologists than as scienlists. Many of us feel a closer
kinship with making and doing than we do with merely
obseruing and describrng, even when we are largely
involved in investigating phenomena. Yet all of the char'
acters we
are prima
Heat tr
it a techr
enough p
of these
f
flowing in
by Leo G
using the
of treating
Osborn
tions of th
Years
earl
subject. F
and other
an indust
is
signific
first demo
is sfi// in
trechanic
Manchest
"
Anothe
rY,
name!
inventing
and watt
research
50 years
Thomas
1870s,
w
R&D labc
chemist .
that
the r
the
field r
i
:l
fl
rgth,
iE.
tion,
rreti-
'per-
lved
I the
eigh
wto
han-
Vic-
nen-
was
;hed
year
i as-
ergy
le to
cien-
blish
lhen,
arat-
r the
ea.
loser
erelY
rgelY
char'
acters we have mentioned, except Watt and
are primarily identifiable as scientists.
From left to rlght:
Benjamin Thompson
Baron Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourer
Josef Stefan
Leo Graetz
Max Jakob
Rumford, Technical Heat Transfer
At the turn of the 20th century the highly influential
pure mathematician Felix Klein observed that there was
an increasing gulf between industrial and academic re-
search. He used his considerable influence to create
a series of technical institutes at Gttingen University
with the purpose
of reuniting the studies of mathematics
and technology.
The young Ludwig Prandtl was given a chair at one ol
these institutes in 1904. He immediately presented
hs
celebrated paper on the boundary layer and articulated
this idea during the next generation with such students
as H. Blasius and Theodore von Krmn.
Wilhelm Nusselt also emerged as a technical force
during these years. His seminal paper on convective heat
transfer, published in 191S, actually had its antecedent in
an earlier, 1909, paper. The dates are interesting be-
cause Nusselt used dimensional analysis to prove things
about natural convection that analysts were still redis-
covering in the 1960s (e.9., that the Grashof number is
the product
of two independent dimensionless groups).
Since the basic discussions of dimensional anaiysis by
Rayleigh and Buckingham did not appear until 1914 and
1915 we must presume
that Nusselt did his work quite
independently. ln 1916, Nusselt's basic paper on film
condensation appeared.
Nusselt only had a temporary appointment at Dresden
University at the time. His more famous tenure in the
theoretical mechaics chair at Munich did not begin until
1925 and lasted until Ernst Schmidt foilowed hrm in 1952.
Both Schmidt, whose early contributions almost eclipsed
those of Nusselt, and Nusselt himself, had begun at
Munich as graduate
students.
Heat transfer became an identifiable discipline---call
it a technology, or a separate body of science-after
enough practical problems
arose to demand it. The first
of these problems was that of heating or cooling the fluid
flowing in a pipe. This probtem was first treated in lgg5
by Leo Graetz who showed how to set the problem
up
usng the viscous flow equations. Of course the question
of treating turbulent flow was not on Graetz's horizon.
Osborne Reynolds had only published his observa-
tions of the laminar-to-turbulent
transition of pipe flow two
years
earlier and the world was far from dealing with the
subject. Reynolds's studies of turbulence, condensation,
and other complex phenomena
that demand attention in
an industrial world, were the work of an engineer. lt
is significant that the original apparatus witn wncfr fe
first demonstrated the laminar-turbulent
transition in 1gg0
is stil rn use in an undergraduate
experiment in the
mechanical engineering department at the University of
Manchester.
Another wind had risen in the middle of the 19th centu-
ry,
namely, the institution of purposeful
research aimed at
nventng the machines and products
of industry. Boulton
and Watt would not have considered setting up their own
'research
division at the turn of the lgth-.century, but
!0
years later such institutions became commonplace.
fhomas A. Edison's famous laboratory, started in the
'1870s,
was typical of these. We trace the first industral
R&D laboratory to the one set up in 1825 by the German
chemist Justus von Liebig, and it is out of this concept
that
the Germans evolved, and for many decades led,
the
field of technical heat transfer.
MECHANICAL ENGINEERiNG I JUNE 1983 I 25
Ernst Kratt Wilhelm Nusselt's application photo for BASf;
1916. (Photo provided by Nusselt's student, G. Lck.)
The creative power and scope of the early work
of
these people was really remarkable. German contribu-
tions in convecton, conducton, radiation, and heat
ex-
changer design continued through the 1920s almost
as
though World War I and the disastrous postwar period
had not happened-
Any bright moment must eventually wane, but this one
did not just wane. Hitler had clearly trumpeted his inten-
tions, and two months after he took power in 1933,
he
began the systematic removal of Jews and
"political
uneliables" from universities and other state institutions.
Good people-both Jews and Gentiles-were driven out
or left of their own accord. What remained of the once
mighty German technical-scientific establishment had
been weakened and dispirited for an entire generation..
Max Jakob also trained in Munich, left Germany in
'1936,
and settled in Chicago. His heat transfer text,
published in 1949, includes these words:
ln particular
[]
allow ample space for the German
,
literatureofthe25yearsbeforeHitler.Since,obvi.
ously, German science has doomed itself for a long
time to come, knowledge of
.the
German language
among students will decrease accordingly, and the
earlier literature will not be accessiblo.
The United States-The Next Half Century
Heat transfer work in the United States during the
1930s and 1940s was focused strongly on industrial
process problems. A number of very able chemical engi-
neers-such people as Alan Colburn and William H.
McAdams--characterized this movement. They were
strongly interested in the development and correlation
of good data, and less interested in methods of analysis
than the Germans were. McAdams's Heat Iransmission
book, published in 1933, shaped American thinking and
teaching for three decades.
Yet during this period, and even before German scien-
tists were displaced onto our shores in great numbers, a
window was opened in this country through which the
advanced German literature could make its entry. ln the
summer of 1932, H.A. Johnson and V.H. Cherry retreated
to a cabin in California's Santa Cruz mountains. There
they developed an extensive revision of a set of instruc-
tional notes that L.M.K. Boelter had written for the heat
transfer course at Berkeley. Boelter and his group read
the German literature and textbooks of the time and were
involved with developing their own synthesis of the mate'
rial. R.C. Martinelli joined
Berkeley in time to contribute to
the 1941 version of the notes.
When the smoke of World War ll had cleared, the
notes had wrought their influence in training a major
set of the heat transfer luminaries of our generation.
They have also been strongly reflected in every sig-
nificant American textbook that has appeared in the last
30 years.
Berkeley and Max Jakob were not the only major
ports
of entry for the German expertise- Another very influential
person has been E.R.G. Eckert. Eckert, who had studied
with Ernst Schmidt, came to WrightPatterson Air Force
Base from Germany
.iust
after WW ll. There he met
a
Berkeley student, R.M. Drake, Jr., who first encouraged,
and later contributed to, the 1946, 1950, and 1959 edi'
tions of Eckert's English book. lt, and Jakob's book, were
the first modern U.S. heat transfer texts.
'i
S,.
th
th
C'.
nl
pr.
SI
ta
h
N
hir
inl
hi,
Ut
ce
Str
SC
tle
rh;
an
int
Wr
en
cp
ar
VE
hr
sir
ha
SL
He;
tu1
^t
dt
Ke
Dir
(
tio
fer
we
He
er
He
m
,the
'19
cy
lWe
'19,
t,
I
19(
iof
,
rThr
iil
It
26 / JUNE 1983 I MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
work
of
contribu-
heat o*-
aln.
lS
period
this
one
his inten-
1933,
he
"political
drven
out
the once
ent had
, obvi-
a long
uage
and the
during the
industrial
engr-
William H.
'vere
coi .ton
of aii-alysis
inking and
sclen-
numbers, a
which the
Pntry.
ln the
lry
retreated
iains. There
t of instruc-
for the heat
group read
ne and were
of the mate-
contribute
to
cleared, the
ing a major
generation.
1 every sig'
d in the last
I maior
Ports
>ry influential
, had studled
on '
trorce
re l. tet
a
encoraged,
rd
'1959
edi'
s book, were
ry in
text,
n
er
The 1930s and 40s were rather fallow years for the
subject of heat transfer. The world was preoccupied
with
the
short-term problems of arming and fighting. But after
the Korean War an American version of German techni-
cal
heat transfer burst out, armed with new tools: The
most
important of these was surely the electronic com-
puter. The hot wire anemometer and other electronic in-
strumentation also changed the character of experimen-
ital
investgation significantly. Berkeley and MtT, which
,'had been strong during the fallow period, remained so.
Now several new centers arose. For example:
' Boelter moved to UCLA in 1944 and brought with
'him
both able people
and radical theories of egineer-
:ing education. Consequently the school enjoyed a long
history of major contributions to heat transfer in the
;.United States.
'
o Eckert moved to the University of Minnesota in 1g5'l
,and established a powerful heat transfer laboratory.
. The Analytical Section at the NACA Lewis research
center (subsequently renamed NASA) was probably our
strongest focus of heat transfer and fluid mechanics re-
search during the 1950s and 60s. lt was virtually disman-
tled by the government during the aerospace cutbacks
that ushered in the 1970s.
The efforts of Americans during the 50s and 60s were
directed at the existing problems of radiation, convection,
and conduction. But a major new subject also arose dur-
ing this time, namely, heat transfer with phase
change.
Work on phase-change problems has been strongly driv-
en by industrial needs, but the field has remained undis-
ciplined. That might give it greater vitality than the other
areas, but il also robs it of academic respectability. Uni-
versities tend to teach the subject only on an ad hoc
basis; an introductory text has yet to be written; and,
since most of its major practitioners
are still alive, none
have yet been canonized by the profession.
Another manifestation of the American adoption of the
subject of heat transfer was the formation in 193g of the
Heat Transfer Division of ASME, followed by the insti-
tution of both the Journal of Heat Transfer and the annu-
al Heat Transfer Conferences in 1959.
prof.
S.
peter
Kezios has recently presented
us with a history of the
Division.
Of course heat transfer has become a strongly multina-
tional pursuit since WW ll. The lnternational Heat Trans-
fer Conferences (now repeating in a four-year cycle)
were begun in 1951, and the lnternational Journat of
Heat and Mass Iransfer was initiated in 1958. Many oth-
er international forums have been created subsequenily.
Heat Transfer in the Late 20th Century
.
The major change in the field of heat transfer during
.the past decade was a great shift away from the develop-
ment and refinement of the body of theory, and toward
'the
pursuit of "mission-oriented"
objectives. During the
'1960s,
many people were worried about a rising tenden-
cy to publish
solutions to problems that didn't really exist.
rWe
have swung far in the opposite direction during the
1970s, and have achieved some very useful results.
,
Heat exchanger analysis was neglected during the
1960s,
but during the 70s we vastly expanded the variety
of design concepts and analytical methods in this area.
The development of melting-freezing storage devices,
of fluidized bed technology, of solar energy utilization
schemes, of high-intensity heat transfer devices, of meth-
ods for computing turbulent boundary layer heat transfer,
and of the analysis of heat transfer with phase change,
all progressed strongly during the 1970s. Throughout all
this, the computer has assumed a steadily rising role.
The change to a more practical
set of mind was strong-
ly motivated by various funding agencies that felt they
had supported too much purposeless work in the late 50s
and throughout the 60s. ln many ways the change has
been a breath of fresh air. On the other hand, we are
picking fruit from an orchard that we have been cultivat-
ing for a long time, more than we are cultivating next
year's
orchard. lt is easy to let the heart go out of our
work when we do this. We are at our best when we mix
abstract and applied thinking.
And the need for abstract thinking will still be with us
as we close ut the century. lt will be driven by our
relentless need to increase the intensif of heat lransfer
processes. We will need a better understanding of the
thermodynamic issues involved with large temperature
and concentration gradients, with metastable states, with
coupled processes, and with reactions. More than any-
thing, we will have to rewrite many of today's explana-
tions of complex phenomena,
because they are smply
not accurate enough when heat fluxes reach the values
to which we are pushing them.
There is a lesson to pe learned from our history. lt is
that each major leap forward in the field
'has
always
occurred here or there, lingered for a generation, and
then a new leap forward has occurred in another place.
The United States has dominated heat transfer for 30
years. This does not mean that we must now cease to be
strong contributors, but we well might wonder where, and
in what form, the next major leap forward will occur.
ffi|
Readings
Some of the larger sources for materal in this article, and some
additional material as well,areincluded for the reader who wishes to
pursue these matters further.
1 Dictionary of Scientific Biography, C.C. Gillespe, ed.-in-chief. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, Vols. I to XVl, 1970-1980.
2 J. Black, Lectures on the Elements of Chemistry, J. Robison, ed.
Vol. 1: "General Doctrines of Chemistry," Part l, "General Effects of
Heat." Edinburgh: Mundell and Son,
'1803.
3 S.C. Brown, Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford. Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press, 1979.
4 J. Fourier, The Analytcal Theory of Heat, trans. A. Freeman, 1878.
New York: Dover Pub., lnc,, 1955.
5 l. Gratton-Guinness, Joseph Fourier 1768-1830, with J.R. Ravetz.
MIT Press, 1972.
6 S.G. Brush, The Knd of Moon We Catt Heaf, 2 vols. New York:
Elsevier. l976.
7 A.D. Beyerchen, Scientlsts under Hitler. New Haven, Conn.: Yale
Univ. Press, 1977.
8 S.P. Kezios, "Perspectives
n Heat Transfer-Some Highliqhts in
the Development of ASME Heat Transfer Division," Heat Transter Eng-
neerng, Vol. 2, Nos. 3-4, 1981, pp. 1 14-19.
I E-R.G. Eckert, "A Pioneering Era In Conveclive Heat Transfer
Research," in Vol. 1, Heat Transfer 1982, Proa. Tth nt'I. Heat Trans.
Conf., Munich, W: Germany. New York: Hemisphere Pub. Corp., 1g82.
10 J.H. Lienhard, "Observations on the German Origins of American
Heat Transfer Pedagogy," Heat Transfer Engr., Vol. 1, No. I
, 1979, p. 7
and p. 64.
11 W.H. McAdams, Heat lransmlssion, lst ed. New York: McGraw-
Hlt, 1933.
12 L.M.K. Boelter, V.H. Cherry, H.A. Johnson, and R.C. Martinelli,
Heat Transfer Notes, reprinted by McGraw-Hill,'1965.
13 M. Jakob, Heat Transfer, Vol. l. New York: John Wiley and Sons,
lnc., 1949.
UECHANICAL ENGINEERIIG i JTJNE 1983 / 27
Why Thinp
tUo
dbrxr qurlitir dcsibrd b, th. tdlcdiu lsl. @d. moitl ttd dry.
Akhcilu, Fhyricin
rnd philmptrn locnd lhb clsrotim Eclu itr
ftrl
mrny iry!, cvcn tho3h thy hd m tyrrcm of utt or matufcmot
to
jvc
nttrriol crprcrioo o lhcir qEolrtiom.
Grti6 r romctimc crcditcd rith tlf, invcntim of thc lh.m-
mclcr. but llts inlrumcnl shich hc dcvicd, in rhoul lh. }!r 1J92, suld
budly bc rogni*d tody. Ar hi! fri.nd Bcm&lto Crtclli dcrribcd ir
otoy ycrn htcr:
Hc tml r
lr$
rbout thr tir ol r lmall han't c!!. llcd t a tubc
tha *i.Jth of l tr*, od rbout trc rl'6 lont: ha brtcd lt
lls
bulb in h hn rnd tumcd thc
alu
uprilc do?n rc thrt thc lutE
dippcd in wrtcr h.ld in mt wi len r thc bll mlcd
down, thc wrter ro* in th. tub.. Thb imtruxnt hc t d ro
invBtilrtc dcgrccr of hcrt rDd 6ld.
Ortitco'r thcrmoropc dcpcndcd on E oarYilioo thtt if cprnd! rhcn it
b hot nd ontrrcu rhco il b 1.
Thc *tcr did rct rcr lc tbc mrcury in modcm thcmomtcr.
bui mcrcly Eed to indicrta ta cprmion of nlnction of thc rir ir lha
bulb. Thc prcliminery httint * r trkl to brin8, thc rttcr lo lcvcl ?hcrc
it ould onvcnintly bc rcr.
Thc 6nt mrn lo mrkc thc ttrcmmc(cr ilo n instruftnt ol
prrcticrl vrlw rrr probrbly Srnctoriu. Prcfcsr ol lhc Thcory ol
Mcdicim rt Prdu lrom l12 to 1624. Hc t. tlx nt phFicin lo trLc I
prtint' t.mpcrriurc nd to rcli! thrl I llErmftlcr oqld
ivc
inlom'
tion ulul in th< dirmb rnd thc mrnr8cmnt of diss.
Tbc mrr dccbiw brprovcmnt in dcrin ru mrdc by Fcrdimnd ll,
Cnnd Dutc of Tmny, in bo{l th
ft
16,ll. Hb th.rorurcr, tlrc El
to b. ind.pco&nl ol chrnSd in rtmplsk p.6ura, rB bud oo tha
crfnion ol r liquiJ, rrthcr th o{ rir, A
t8
bulb, Ld rirh @lourcd
rohol. Ld into ill, nmov lubc xd,ed tl ih. iop.
Tl crrly ttEmmct n lomctim3 borc lahs rih nmber ot
otbc mrl to indkrtc dcrca o( hctt md old. Thc incobu Buomu'
ts of M8d.bul, Otro
q
Gwrictc. boilt mrtnicnt rpccimn. 20 fet
bi, in ehi(:h thc crplBioo ol dotrol movcd r 6ot conm.ld lo t E
iw of en tel pointina. rs thc wthcr dicitcd, to divioE
t,rdulcd
todr '!rct bcrt' to 'rert mld.'
On of Fcrdinrnd't thlmmteE rccd R.obcn Boylc, tho ob.
rncd: 'Wc rrc
3rcrtly
l a lon for x ttrridrd rhcrcby to mcsurc cold.
Tbc mmoo rtrumou bot u m trcrc thtn lhc t ltiE oldncs ol tlrc
rh.' Boyk'r ncDpt to dcf rir Doirltr
oo tlrraootcr tcra fFt }!ry
rmful. bt ritnicut dvre ru mr& in 1694 by Crrb Rcu.ldini,
Brt}.tlin o( Prdu, *ho rutcd th.t rb. mltint
Point
o( icc rnd thc
boing point o( rrtrr hould b. ud B ttndrrd tcpcr1u6,
(ha tp.ca
batftcn th.m on tlrc thcmomtcr 'rlcm baint divirad into t*clYc prrt.
Tti wr sund irr<, bul it w[ rcl trln up lor mrny ycrn.
Hot ond CoU
old body until thcy both hve tl mm tcmpcrrtue. Th procas b rlx
bui of n crpcrimctl crcrci-, krm to
tcEratio6
of stridnts s thc
ncthod ol miiuc!. lt wu rct rcrlh,! until hrc in tk dry thal thc cvntud
cqulity ol tcmpcnture batwcn t?o bodi6 n ontct ve fundmcnttl to
thc thrcc rcll ctblishcl lB ol rlxrnodynmi,s Ttr on!-kmwn but
o*ly clcvttcd primiplc w ihcrcl.xc allcd thc Eroth l? o{ ih.rre
dnnmb.
Alrhouh th. mpt ol tcrnprnruc ir quitc fmiliu, !rrrctort
&lnition ol thc word k mt s casy TlE rintbt b tcmptcd to lotkn
Hunpry Dumpry;
'lty'hcn
I w word, it mr
i6t
rhr I ctrc it to
cln-'TlE tcmp.r.iuc of llmc mtht b. dc6md in rcms ol its colNf :
tlc tcmpcrrrurc of p.rnr by thc tcnl o{ tl mrcury thrcrd n tha
pbyricln'r thcrmfttcr: rnd thc tcmpcrrtuc ol a r,il ol *irc in tcmr ol
l .lcdtrl r6irrE. Thc rtntful, horevc. lool fq d.nilio6 whiJt
rill mt bc lintcd o obviouly rith rhc propcni.s of prrticular ubstnc
or rtcri.h. Onc wry i to dc6rc thc tcmpcrtturc of I hJy in tcrm ol thc
rErac LiEric cmry o{ r. mlc!;u}er. W}Eo rh. lclrlc i lchcd on th.
cLlricl cmrly lom th. 3upply ir mwrtcd ito hctt. d tlEn 3hrcd
ol u dditixd timtic crry mnt rrE r.t.r mlcobt. rhicJr mc-
qundy ruh rround tt imcui gc.. l crcntull, th.y rcquc
.ru3h crcro, to bunr dt of fh. lhuiJ 3ut rhotcth.r rlrd Ggpc u
vporr.
Wbcn h(t rxl r $ld otricct rc plGd n mt.ct tlE lcculcr
acntc cmry in rh mllisbB which (Nr
tt tlE poinr! ol @txt. Aricr
ullicicnt wbc ol coltiliw th< moksulrr cmrts rll tx evcftd Nt.
sd th. tcmp.{.aua ol thc rw oi{rlt r rpgrorch ahc snw vlrr.
Tl: arorh hs ol rh.modynmb i o{ gri pncttrl imponrre.
SUif rrating. r tharffildr mm iU rn ttmpcnI.: lt rcar-
rwin to Lffi thrt il rc lcrw h fc bo crrfh to rctrin
is.rmrl
aullibriw it ,ill resrd mrtcly cm tlr t mp.tw ol th. rir, thc
body, a rny o{h.r ob.,.cr in
qfltr{.r
ri it.
For ricntic purpo!.r th.
ta
rh.lmmtcr b ffic of thc bcrt
lcparture.mrturin dcviur. If rcm g8 put into ontrimr r
itcd, it preurc ires; thc prew i mrcll thc b.ncriot of thc
tr
aolccuJa m tlr ?rllr o{ thc {:ontritrr, rr thb obviuly b.m6
Srcrtcr
r tt* ,mlcolct
rin higlrr !+ed! thmuth bcin3 hclcd. Cmvcruly. il tlr
er
b tmlcd, tlE prcuuc rhrch ii.rrt rill bc(m lcs. Strdctrt in th.
x\yrio
htrorttory ofrcn mr$qc thc
ruc o{ I
tr
t vri(u rcmp-
ts. By drwitr8 r
rrph
ret prodrin ir b{.twds tbcy un p(cdicr rtr
l[rpcntuc tt rhich tha
t!
*ould crtt rc pr6uc t tll. For rll lha
*!mo
s thk tcmgrcnrure bour
-273 2t, *hich b lrcwn s
rblolutc zcro Thc rpprorch lho*n by lhc rrudcnt'! jrrph b rct. ol coum,
ootircly rel6ric, lire tha
u
will chrnc to r liuiJ nd lhcn to sli.,
Mc rercbin3 it! lowct p(ihlc tcmrEntqc_ Abtolutc /,cro can, hc*-
cvr. b+ dcfimd in r varicty f wr1:, rnd t larj Ncun l thc smc plae
nn thr cetisrle .., .l
2l
f)nicl Fahcnhcit mdc thc rr reliblc mcrcury thcrmoftt.,
crrly.in.tk cighrccnrh cenrury on ht slc. ro *rrtirc'giit
... r,ix
rtrhcd. thc mclring poinr of icc ras plsced
rr 32 dcArca _j,f* *...1
rmftsrarurc of thc body r 9 dctrccs. Thc uprcr Rrca poiir eu .frcr.
rrrds idcntifkd Eiih rhc boilio poinr of *tcr i, lf Z g.-.
Pspl< dcrctcd to Britsh werthcr oltcn t*trc". oi-it entirrrd
slc ws dcvi*d by rrctou Frcrchmo. rlong with f ibg.*,'t.u*,r.*
nd othcr unrct(omc moilarrioc of Crlfi pcnmiri-iilLrr*
a.
rlc of rcmpcmrurc wirh l0 dcarccs bcr*ccn it. *friig p"iri io .rra
thc lrling
Frtnr of *arcr ws rcrually propc.d
Uy i"f,. Ccls6. I
SwqJiJr rrommcr. in 1742_
Alrhough thc tlErmmtcr is rn apjercntly rrmple instrumnt,
it
propcr utstodin
ruira n ccu6o i"to tt, ,rUrt t.: of ,t**
dynrms.
Bttnvca I wr()tc thc rlxnlhoy)
,mmp<crJ
four rymphonic: tc Eroil
thc Fifrh. rlr
pasrort.
rx, rhc Ninrh. A iiml;; iorirr-o.*
,
tws ol rh.rmodynemi<.
which
ovrn ril ,h" ;;;;;;-
or
"*.g
rhth rry in rhc body. in thc fircptacc. .r,J ,h.";s;;;';;sniwe.
Tlr nr lr* B vcry lmtr. Tlrc rood * f i*n ,o ..ny
pcopc
{irludint t rd Srcr), rnd r cwrpany ol ..rs sr.liJeno .ilf . f
prow*.ed, rirc hll r pe6 rborr ttr ttrirJ tx; u", ir., iil*o", *,ry
terb(t
as m lunhcr gclorc
rcvcrlin rhcrc thc foni-w tca
wc rlxrutd look r lhc orh.r thcc, rircc rhcy point
thc *.r'ioi..U.olu"
zcro rhkh rhc tuxhrim phlmph.n
rcre <!ilein *;;;;
tcfr rhm r
pg< (r l*o brrl.
Ex,r ol thc lan cr b. ruted in mtry rJifcrcnt tryr, w mrc
ri3wouly rhrn orhc. A dmplc,vekn
or r. rt ra*lsiioi
"*rg
o,
ncilhr.bc. rcerr.d m( dcrlroycd. Thcrc i rcmc
,Eri6cr;ih .rirkae
h.r rhi tr b mrinlired only b.{e *t";; ;; ; rcr rinA of
rrcrty o dcl with Eny rp?.rcol vi{r-rbn
Srifc r mrrJ, .L .
r-t O.rl
ol crcr i prodw!
in thc form:, h:rt d l,!h,.'Th.;;;r
cptir
lhb r*ry by imiing rher rh. b.rd ond lrstk ,r ;h. ."i.;;;ruflcd
ti
:fTbl
crcrgy, *airing ro bc rrnsformcd
nro.or" otr_
"*ts.
Nccdlcs io.dd, rhc chcmiol crory b &nc.J in l*fr riy riio mrtc rtc
clculrrix Grc oul @rrccrly, irdiqti8 ,lr.
--.
i,1-*oiri
, .*16,
bcforc , rrcr itnition.
ln m prwx:.
wh. u nu-irr alion, it b Hryry io irrclidc
oo c.ch !dc of th brlrre hcrr tcm rcpr*nting
tfrc u of rc
mtrrulr in$arlvci. Ths efrcmct ?a- rntrluqd in ieUS iy, eirt.ia
cmbrrJicd n rh i.tbrrcd rk: E = mc:, iMrcrtint ,h.;;r;i
ot cxrsr
E whkh qn
bc otrraiqC lrcm m$!t. ; whcrc c-is rhc :pccJ ot liht
Tl"s rcnn<l lw of thcm'lJvemic
rw orr a,n,'ir,o
*
rpccid mlerstions bour h.*, whictr ao *r ,ppif
"iii.
^*
,f
crcr(y. !r is tiltrcr f oimn otsryation thsr il'two ni;.*r-", lin.r.n
tmr*r&lu.c, r +rie.I i ipnrcr.
hral wi! fl.)* f m hc'h,ir tixv t,. ttx