UK National Heat Transfer Committee

Mission

​

The mission of UK National Heat Transfer Committee (UKNHTC) is to advance the development and exchange of knowledge in the Heat Transfer field.

​

Aims

​

The Key aims of the Committee are to:

​

​

• Promote excellence in Heat Transfer education, research and practice

• Facilitate the exchange of relevant knowledge in Heat Transfer

• Promote collaboration between industry, universities, government, and professional societies

• Facilitate public understanding of technical issues​ related to Heat Transfer

• Raise the international profile of the UK Heat Transfer community​

 

History

​

The UK National Heat Transfer Committee was established in 1982 in response to a decision by the Assembly for International Heat Transfer Conferences (AIHTC) to require each country to appraise their own papers for the 7th IHTC; an obligation which continues to the present.

​

The UKNHTC was formed as a joint committee of the Institution of Mechanical and Engineers (IMechE) and Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), and the representatives to the AIHTC are nominated by UKNHTC but reflect the areas of these Institutions. The founding Chair and IChemE representative was Professor Geoffrey Hewitt of Imperial College London, who remains on the AIHTC as a Past President (IHTC-10, Brighton, UK). Professor Hugh Simpson of Strathclyde University represented the IMechE. The current representatives are Professor Tassos Karayiannis (Brunel University London) and Dr. Francesco Coletti (Brunel University London, and Hexxcell Ltd, an Imperial College spin-off).

​

Shortly after its establishment, the Committee decided that four years was a long time for members of the heat transfer community to wait of the next opportunity to publish and discuss their work in a prestigious conference and started the UK series of conferences, initially on a four year cycle on even years between the International Conferences.

​

The first UK National Heat Transfer Conference (UKHTC) was held in 1984 with Professor Simpson as Chairman and took place in Leeds. In 1997 the cycle was adjusted and the 5th Conference was held in that year and the frequency was also increased so the Conference is now held on a 2-year cycle. Organized by the UKNHTC and hosted by a range of academic institutions across the UK, the UKHTC is supported or co-sponsored on a regular basis by key national professional institutions related to heat transfer and energy, including the IChemE, IMechE, Heat Transfer Society (HTS), as well as international organizations such as the International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer (ICHMT).

​

The latest edition of the Conference, the 15th, was held in 2017 in Brunel University London attracting 140 delegates from 28 countries. The programme comprised a total of 100 oral presentations and 10 posters with approximately 60% of the contributions from the UK and the remainder from overseas. The conference reflected the broad range of heat transfer research being carried out in the UK with strong representations from both academia and industry. Major industrial contributors included Rolls Royce, EDF, BP and Repsol.

​

The UKNHTC currently reviews papers for the International Heat Transfer Conference  from Ireland, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Other Middle East countries not specified elsewhere, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and other Balkan countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Czech republic and Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and Albania as well as the UK itself. For IHTC-16 in 2018, this involved consideration of over 70 submissions.

​​