The fundamental mechanism of single-phase convective heat transfer enhancement : the field synergy princple and its applications

Abstract

Paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 1-4 July, 2007.

In this keynote lecture a comprehensive review is presented for the field synergy principle (FSP) which was proposed at the 11th International Heat Transfer Conference in 1998 and later further enhanced by many researchers, including the present authors. The lecture is organized as follows. A brief introduction to the FSP is presented in section 1. In Section 2, discussion is given to the indications of the synergy degree between velocity and temperature gradient. In Section 3, numerous examples are provided to show the validity of the principle. In Section 4 a special experimental verification of the principle is provided. In Section 5 numerical examples are provided to demonstrate that the field synergy principle can unify all the existing explanations of single-phase convective heat transfer enhancement. Section 6 is devoted to the applications of the field synergy principle in developing new types of enhanced surfaces for heat transfer. Finally some conclusions are drawn.