Rutgers Engineering Hosts Symposium on Advances in Computational Heat Transfer

A major international conference, CHT-15 – the 6th International Symposium on Advances in Computational Heat Transfer, was hosted by Rutgers University, from May 24 - 29, 2015. Professor Yogesh Jaluria was the conference chair and Professor Zhixiong (James) Guo was the technical program chair. They were supported by several professors at Rutgers University as members of the organizing committee. An International Advisory Board was also involved in advising the conference organizers and in reviewing the papers.

The conference was dedicated to Professor Suhas Patankar, who has been a pioneer in the field of Computational Heat Transfer and who has been a major force behind much of the recent work in CHT. He presented the opening plenary lecture. A special honor was also given to Professor Graham de Vahl Davis, from Australia, for spearheading these conferences and contributing extensively to the field. A Best Paper award was presented to the paper judged to be the best contribution.

The conference attracted over 200 participants from 24 countries around the world. The program consisted of 15 keynote presentations, 25 invited lectures and 164 contributed papers. The speakers included many renowned, distinguished researchers, who have made outstanding contributions to the field of computational heat transfer. Among these were Professors Spalding from UK, W. Q. Tao from China, Gang Chen from MIT, Tom Shih from Purdue, Helcio Orlande from Brazil, L.Q. Wang from Hong Kong, Gretar Tryggvasan from Notre Dame, Andrew Rees from UK, Dominique Baillis from France, Bengt Sunden from Sweden, among others.

The conference was held at the Fiber Optics Building and three other auditoriums in Engineering at Busch Campus. The opening ceremony involved Professors Jaluria and Guo, along with the Rutgers's dean of engineering, Thomas N. Farris. Participants enjoyed a reception at New Brunswick's Zimmerli Art Museum and a gala dinner-cruise around Manhattan included award presentations. Overall, it was a very successful conference, which brought many active and distinguished experts in the field together to present the state of the art and discuss future needs and trends.

Extensive support was provided by the Rutgers staff of the Mechanical Engineering Department, particularly Shefali Patel, and by the Office of the Dean's staff, particularly Kendra Cameron. Rebecca Brenowitz of the Zimmerli Art Museum, the Department of Transportation Services, and other engineering departments also provided substantial support.