Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Volume 2015 (2015), Article ID 540607, 1 page
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/540607

Editorial

Modeling and Analysis in Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer

Gongnan Xie,¹ Christopher G. Jesudason,² Di Zhang,³ Hao-Chun Zhang,⁴ and John C. Chai⁵

¹Department of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710072, China
²Department of Chemistry, Science Faculty, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
³School of Energy and Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710049, China
⁴School of Energy Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
⁵School of Computing and Engineering, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK

Received 27 May 2015; Accepted 28 May 2015

Copyright © 2015 Gongnan Xie et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Thermodynamics referring to heat transfer is a key concept in energy transport, conversion, conservation, and management with many applications, for example, in heat exchangers, thermal energy storage systems, gas turbines, aerospace, and human physiology. Thermodynamic analysis is essential for the many fields in physics, chemistry, chemical engineering, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, cell biology, biomedical engineering, and materials science. Its analytical methods have found fruitful applications in other fields such as economics. Heat transfer is concerned with the generation, use, conversion, and exchange of thermal energy between physical systems and is normally classified under thermal conduction, convection, radiation, and phase change energy transfer. In most cases, it is very difficult to obtain analytical solutions to thermodynamic and heat transfer problems, and numerical modeling and analysis are becoming a powerful tool in these and related areas. A large number of analytical and computational techniques have been developed for modeling and analyzing thermodynamic systems and heat transfer processes. A great amount of the literature has been published, but perhaps a greater quantity remains classified and not readily accessible from industrial research in this important discipline.

The main goal of this special issue is to bring together theoretical, numerical, and experimental contributions that describe original research results and/or innovative concepts that address all aspects of thermodynamics and heat transfer problems. This issue covers a wide range of topics in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer as well as advanced computing or optimization methods for thermofluid engineering problems in energy and power fields such as turbomachinery, heat exchangers, chemical reactions, and thermal protection systems. We hope that these topics can be pursued and presented yearly to feature trends and new developments.

Acknowledgments

Finally, we would like to express our thanks to all the contributors of this special issue for their support and cooperation and to the qualified reviewers that ensured high paper quality for this special issue.

Gongnan Xie
Christopher G. Jesudason
Di Zhang
Hao-Chun Zhang
John C. Chai