SOME STAKES IN HEAT-TRANSFER

Some stakes in heat transfer. Heat transfer is strongly involved in ma ny scientific and technologic domains and the French heat transfer lab oratories and networks cooperating is this field are first located, Th e analysis of the main industrial activities demanding heat transfer c ompetence helps one first to identify some up-to-date technological ch allenges. It appears clearly that connecions are to be reinforced betw een disciplines like heat transfer, fluid mechanics, combustion, mater ial science, optics, biology... Scientific objectives are then scanned through, by splitting the research activities between mature topics ( radiation, particularly in semi-transparent media; convection and ther moconvective instabilities; heat transfer in porous media...), emergin g (heat transfer with change of phase, convective heat transfer enhanc ement by active control in the boundary layer, inverse techniques...) and incipient ones. Among some promising new topics, let us mention mi croscale heat transfer, and also bioheat transfer. (C) Elsevier, Paris .