A Textbook for Heat Transfer Fundamentals

Heat transfer background is becoming vital for scientists and engineers in several branches of technological development, including mechanical, chemical, electrical, materials, environmental, civil, aerospace and bio engineering, and further expanding into biosciences, material science, chemistry and physics. The purpose of this textbook is to teach undergraduate students the fundamentals of heat transfer within one semester without their becoming overwhelmed with the details or with mathematical complications. The intent is to introduce the physical principals and fundamental concepts of heat transfer efficiently and effectively and to develop the skills to identify basic problems in various applications and seek their solutions. One of the objectives of this book is to engage students to read and comprehend concepts without difficulty. The book makes an effort to introduce basic concepts of heat transfer using simple language making them easy to understand. Students are exposed to many challenging interruptions during the school years, so rather than having them struggle with difficult and puzzling explanations they are led to focus on important essentials. The aim was not to produce a thick book with excessive reference information and derivations. Rather, it was to teach almost all material included in the chapters. Today in academic society students are exposed to large amounts of electronic information and in general they do not have the time to read thick textbooks. Several excellent graduate level textbooks, reference books and web sites are available on specific topics. Students can access these resources by simply searching each topic presented in the book to further enhance knowledge.