The student will have to refer to the knowledge acquired with the courses of Thermal Physics and Fluid Mechanics.
The course will form a professional figure able to actively interact with the manufacturing and processing, automotive, building and human fields, knowing the basic principles of thermal physics for current leading-edge engineering applications.
Review of heat transfer modes (conduction, convection and radiation), mass transfer mechanisms (drying), thermodynamics (most air, psychrometry for thermal comfort), transport phenomena in material processing and manufacturing. Representative problems that will be treated include:heat transfer enhancement in cooling fins; multi-phase heat transfer in heat pipes; convective transport in nanofluids; thermal management in electronic equipment; icing and frost mitigation on treated surfaces; radiation in transparent smart window; indoor thermo-hygrometric comfort; food packaging and long-term food preservation; thermal interface enhancement technology; wettability effect on heat transfer; low temperature cooling techniques with cryogenic fluids.
For each technology, the physical mechanisms will be described and the mathematical modelling to study the phenomena will be presented and discussed, to yield operational tools for obtaining practical solutions for applied and industrial thermal problems related to device development and production processes.
Copy of the lecture slides available upon request.
Fundamentals of heat and mass transfer. F.P. Incropera, D.P. De Witt; John Wiley & Sons.
Teaching will take place mainly through lectures with a special attention to a direct interaction with students. The course will present and discuss, with ad hoc samples, the different tools, which are usually used to address the course topics: dimensional analysis; scaling principles and approximation techniques; theoretical analytical models, numerical simulations.
The course assessment consists in the preparation of an end-of-course report on one topic approved by the course lecturer and an oral examination.
The report will have to be delivered some days before the oral test. During the oral test there will be a discussion on the report content and its evaluation will be part (50%) of the final evaluation.
The oral test is made by three parts: a discussion of the written report, a colloquium on a subject chosen by the candidate (different from that of the report) and a colloquium on different subjects to complete the survey. The result of the oral test (considering the report evaluation) will yield the final mark.