Authors: Chenxu Liu and Maxine Yew

Photography by Hou Tuo

The International Symposium on Numerical Methods in Heat and Mass Transfer 2020 (ISNMHMT2020) was jointly organized by Youth Committee on Heat and Mass Transfer of the Chinese Society of Engineering Thermo-physics, University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC), Ningbo Key Laboratory on Energy Material and Technology, as well as Ningbo Innovation Team of Frontier Technologies on Thermal Management in Low-carbon Vehicles. ISNMHMT2020 has been held successfully in UNNC on December 11-13th, 2020. The conference was jointly chaired by Prof. Yuying Yan from University of Nottingham and Prof. Bingyang Cao, Vice Dean of School of Aerospace and Aeronautics, Tsinghua University, and also Distinguished Young Scholar from the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The Conference Executive Chairs are Dr Yong Ren from UNNC, and Prof. Yuan Dong from Hangzhou Dianzi University. The conference combined online presentations with 80 participants together with offline presentations with number of participants nearly 100, coming from different universities in China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, UK and US, including Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Southeast University, South China University of Technology, Tsinghua University, Xi’an Jiaotong University, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Brunel University London, Iowa State University, Purdue University, Kyushu University and Nanyang Technological University.

Prof. Patrick Y.K. Chau, Vice Provost for Research of UNNC, Li Dak Sum Chair Professor in Information Systems and Operations Management, delivered the welcome speech and emphasized the synergistic role by UNNC in promoting research exchange and collaborations of all kinds around the world with other institutions. Prof. Chau also highlighted that the establishment of the China Beacons of Excellence Innovation Institute following the signing of a framework agreement between the University and the Ningbo Municipal Government will further greatly enhance UNNC’s research capabilities and connection with other institutions around the world. The opening remarks were delivered by Prof. Yuying Yan and Prof. Bingyang Cao, respectively.

A total of 11 plenary lectures were delivered by distinguished experts in the field of heat and mass transfer, and more than 60 keynote speeches and oral presentations have been delivered in 6 parallel sessions by scholars on cutting-edge research and frontier technologies in engineering thermo-physics, heat and mass transfer, and numerical computing, covering diverse subject areas including transport phenomena of droplet, advanced thermal management, multiple phase flow and renewable energy, transport of electrons and phonons & Lattice Boltzmann method, heat and mass transfer in advanced materials, as well as thermal fluid dynamics.

Professor Guihua Tang from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Distinguished Young Scholar from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, also the Director of Key Laboratory of Thermo-Fluid Science and Engineering, Ministry of Education in China, delivered a plenary lecture Phonon-electron Coupling Characteristic and Thermoelectric Optimization in Nanoscale Low-dimensional Materials.

Professor Rong Chen from School of Energy and Power Engineering of Chongqing University and Distinguished Young Scholar from the National Natural Science Foundation of China delivered a plenary lecture Photothermally Induced Droplet Evaporation and Interfacial Phenomena.

Professor Masamichi Kohno, a professor in International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I2CNER) of Kyushu University Japan, presented online plenary lecture Effect of Oxide Layer on Spray Cooling of a Hot Surface.

Professor Chun Yang, Professor and Associate Chair in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the Nanyang Technological University delivered a plenary lecture Freezing of Droplets on a Cold Surface: Dynamic Shape Changes, Spreading and Active Control.

Professor Jinliang Xu, Distinguished Young Scholar from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, also the Director of Beijing Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow and Heat Transfer for Low Grade Energy Utilization, North China Electric Power University delivered a plenary lecture Smooth Transition Across Liquid-like, Two-phase-like and Gas-like Regimes by Crossing Two Transition Temperatures.

Professor Zhigang Li, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology presented the latest research on an asymmetric converging-diverging channel based microfluidic rectifier for newtonian fluids.

Professor Liqiu Wang, Director and the Chief Scientist for the Laboratory for Nanofluids and Thermal Engineering at the Zhejiang Institute of Research and Innovation, the University of Hong Kong (HKU-ZIRI) presented a plenary lecture on Nonlinear Computation.

Professor Zuankai Wang, Associate Dean in the College of Engineering at the City University of Hong Kong，Changjiang Chair Professor by Ministry of Education of China talked about latest innovations at interfaces for water energy harvesting.

Professor Xinwei Wang, full professor at Iowa State University delivered an online lecture on Anisotropic Thermal Conductivities and Structure in Lignin-based Microscale Carbon Fibers.

Professor Tassos G. Karayiannis from Brunel University London，also Chairman of the UK National Heat Transfer Committee delivered an online lecture Pool Boiling: Fundamentals and Heat Transfer Enhancement.

Professor Xiulin Ruan from Purdue University and ASME Fellow delivered an online lecture Predictive Simulations of Modal Phonon and Photon Transport Properties.

The conference concludes with a great success and provides a significantly excellent platform for academic exchange on the latest findings in the subjects of heat and mass transfer, energy materials and technologies. The local and international scholars could opt to participate either online or on-site to share their latest findings and discuss about future collaboration in various areas such as micro/nano heat transfer, convective thermofluids, radiation, multiphase flow, reaction engineering and energy storage. The effort undertaken to ensure the realization of conference to cope with pandemic control circumstance was greatly lauded by the conference participants from home and abroad. ISNMHMT2020 will further promote academic exchanges and strengthen the cooperation between domestic and international scholars in multiple fields, including engineering thermo-physics, heat and mass transfer and numerical computing.