It is the object of this text to provide fundamental instruction in heat transfer while employing the methods and language of industry. This treatment of the subject has evolved from a course given at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn over a period of years. The possibilities of collegiate instruction patterned after the requirements of the practicing process engineer were suggested and encouraged by Dr. Donald F. Othmer, Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering. The inclusion of the practical aspects of the subject as an integral part of the pedagogy was intended to serve as a supplement rather than a substitute for a strong foundation in engineering fundamentals. These points of view have been retained throughout the writing of the book.

To provide the rounded group of heat-transfer tools required in process engineering it has been necessary to present a number of empirical calculation methods which have not previously appeared in the engineering literature. Considerable thought has been given to these methods, and the author has discussed them with numerous engineers before accepting and including them in the text. It has been a further desire that all the calculations appearing in the text shall have been performed by an experienced engineer in a conventional manner. On several occasions the author has enlisted the aid of experienced colleagues, and their assistance is acknowledged in the text. In presenting several of the methods some degree of accuracy has been sacrificed to permit the broader application of fewer methods, and it is hoped that these simplifications will cause neither inconvenience nor criticism.

It became apparent in the early stages of writing this book that it could readily become too large for convenient use, and this has affected the plan of the book in several important respects. A portion of the material which is included in conventional texts is rarely applied in the solution of run-of-the-mill engineering problems. Such material, as familiar and accepted as it may be, has been omitted unless it qualified as important fundamental information. Secondly, it was not possible to allocate space for making bibliographic comparisons and evaluations and at the same time present industrial practice. Where no mention has been made of a recent contribution to the literature no slight was intended. Most of the literature references cited cover methods on which the author has obtained additional information from industrial application.

The author has been influenced in his own professional development by the excellent books of Prof. W. H. McAdams, Dr. Alfred Schack, and others, and it is felt that their influence should be acknowledged separately in addition to their incidence in the text as bibliography.

For assistance with manuscript indebtedness is expressed to Thomas H. Miley, John Blizard, and John A. Jost, former associates at the Foster Wheeler Corporation. For checking the numerical calculations credit is due to Krishnabhai Desai and Narendra R. Bhow, graduate students at the Polytechnic Institute. For suggestions which led to the inclusion or exclusion of certain material thanks are due Norman E. Anderson, Charles Bliss, Dr. John F. Middleton, Edward L. Pfeiffer, Oliver N. Prescott, Everett N. Sieder, Dr. George E. Tait, and to Joseph Meisler for assistance with proof. The Tubular Exchanger Manufacturers Association has been most generous in granting permission for the reproduction of a number of the graphs contained in its Standard. Thanks are also extended to Richard L. Cawood, President, and Arthur E. Kempler, Vice-President, for their personal assistance and for the cooperation of the Patterson Foundry & Machine Company.

A second edition? After 65 plus years? Is it reasonable? Does it make sense from a technical and publication perspective? The answer is ordinarily “No.” But for Donald Q. Kern’s classic heat transfer book, Process Heat Transfer, the answer is definitely “Yes.”

The first edition sold approximately 65,000 copies over its lifetime. And for good reason. It stands alongside the powerhouse classics in the chemical engineering literature: Treybal’s Mass Transfer Operations, McCabe and Smith’s Unit Operations of Chemical Engineering, Bird, Stewart, and Lightfoot’s Transport Phenomena (with the second edition arriving on the scene after a half century), etc.

As Kern put it in his Preface: “the object of this text is to promote instruction in heat transfer while employing the methods and language of industry by providing the heat transfer tools required in process engineering.” Unbelievably, this book still achieves many of its original objectives as many practicing (chemical) engineers involved with heat transfer design include this book as part of their library – as evidenced by an email from a former Manhattan College student who is now working as a Process Engineer:

Even though the relentless passage of time has brought about many changes to the past, there have been relatively few truly innovative changes to the heat transfer equipment employed by industry since 1950 – and that may or may not be good. Still, there are changes that need to be addressed if Kern’s original work is to continue to remain relevant in the 21^st century process engineering literature. Topics that are part of the current engineers’ vocabulary but need to be addressed include (but are not limited to) energy conservation and the associated topic of quality energy, nanomaterials, environmental considerations, health and safety (and the accompanying topic of risk), packaged calculation programs, the move from engineering units to the International System of Units (SI), etc.

Some of the above factors convinced the authors of the need for an update to Kern’s classic work so that students would find an easy transition from classroom examples to industrial applications. From an educational perspective, the lead author of this second edition (Flynn) has employed Kern’s Process Heat Transfer as the primary text in the junior-year chemical engineering course at Manhattan College for 18 years. One of the coauthors (Theodore) attempted to model his recent 2013 heat transfer book, Heat Transfer Applications for the Practicing Engineering (John Wiley & Sons) after Kern’s book.

Kern’s second edition is divided into three Parts: Fundamentals and Principles, Heat Exchangers, and Peripheral Topics. The first Part provides a series of chapters concerned with introductory topics that are required when solving heat transfer problems. This part of the book deals with heat transfer principles; topics that receive treatment include steady-state heat conduction, unsteady-state heat conduction, forced convection, free convection, and radiation. Part II is considered by the authors to be the “meat” of the book – addressing heat transfer equipment design procedures and applications. In addition to providing a more meaningful treatment of the various types of heat exchangers, this Part also examines the roles of computers on predicting the performance and the design of heat transfer equipment. It also should be noted that Kern’s original practice problems were included in this part. The concluding Part of the book examines other related topics of interest including insulation and refractory, refrigeration and cryogenics, boilers, cooling towers, quenchers, heat pipes, and batch and unsteady-state processes health and hazard risk, and entropy considerations.

A comment on units and notations. The original units and notations employed by Kern were essentially retained. A short write-up on the International System of Units (SI) is provided in the Appendix to accommodate the clamor for metric units; unit conversion tables are also included. This accommodation was included despite industry’s continual use of British Engineering units. Finally, and for obvious reasons, Kern adopted chemical engineering notation; fortunately, they have – for the most part – been retained by industry.

The changes to the present edition have evolved from a host of sources, including: course notes, homework assignments, and exam problems prepared by Ann Marie Flynn for a core, three-credit, undergraduate course, “Chemical Engineering Principles II: Heat Transfer,” offered by Manhattan College; I. Farag and J. Reynolds, Heat Transfer, A Theodore Tutorial, East Williston, N.Y., 1994; and J. Reynolds, J. Jeris, and L. Theodore, Handbook of Chemical and Environmental Engineering Calculations, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, 2004. Although the bulk of the new material is original and/or taken from sources that the authors have been directly involved with, every effort has been made to acknowledge material drawn from other sources.

Our sincere thanks are extended to Kleant Daci, Michael Pryor, and Anet Kashoa as contributing authors for Chapter 9, Chapter 10, and Chapter 11, respectively. We also appreciate the extraordinary insight and guidance provided by Francesco Ricci and Paul Farber during the writing of this book.

Note: The authors are in the process of developing a useful resource in the form of a website which will contain over 150 additional problems and 15 hours of exams; solutions for these problems and exams will be available for those who adopt the book for training and/or academic purposes.