ESDU 05009:2010

PREFACE TO HEAT TRANSFER SERIES

Engineers concerned with heat transfer equipment face an
ever-increasing demand for products with a performance that must be
substantiated under stringent constraints of cost and operation.
Customers for their products are skilled in the ways of achieving,
and are fully aware of what can be achieved by, competitively
designed equipment. Assuming the basic skill of the designer, no
other single factor can contribute more to the economic preparation
of a satisfactory, competitive design than the data upon which that
design is based and the speed with which those data can be found
and applied.

Heat transfer data, in common with those relating to many other
disciplines of concern to the engineer, are widely scattered and
when found are of variable quality and relevance to the industrial
application. Engineers do not, generally speaking, have the
facilities to collect and evaluate all the data available which may
be applicable to each aspect of their work. Even if they had the
desire to undertake such a task it is unlikely that they could
allow the time necessary to prepare their own data "working tools"
at the expense of time spent in the application of knowledge and
experience to the particular job in hand. In any case, equipment
users will increasingly wish to view the design, not against some
locally-derived data but against what can be demonstrated to be the
best available data whose integrity is underwritten by a
significant cross-section of the engineering community concerned
with the derivation and application of that data. It is ESDU's
purpose to provide such data in many fields. ESDU has prepared this
information for both the designer and equipment user and, by
serving the needs of many, accomplishes the task at much lower cost
than could apply to individuals performing it on their own
behalf.