The UK National Heat Transfer Committee is pleased to announce a series of webinars on heat transfer related topics delivered by world-class academics and industry practitioners. The next webinar will be delivered by Prof Yuying Yan of the University of Nottingham on "Advances in using nature inspired solutions for improving heat transfer enhancement and energy utilisations ".

Abstract

Living things have been continued to evolve under the pressure of survival and show structures with certain functions. They provide inspirations for humans to cope with challenges that we face today. In this lecture, I aim to highlight what we could learn from nature to tackle the challenges in heat transfer and energy utilisations for improving the efficiency and sustainability, and to introduce our recent progresses of the work inspired by nature or biological entities.

Our previous focus on biomimetics was concerned with mimicking plants and animals’ surface morphological nature for possible solutions of flow drag reduction and heat transfer enhancement, and this still strongly draws our research attention to improving understanding of the mechanism and putting forward new applications, such as in nucleate boiling, spray cooling, and de-icing.

In terms of the recent research efforts and progresses, two works will be reported. One is applying the nature inspired solutions to energy transfer and storage involving using composite phase change materials with hierarchical porous structures for medium-high-temperature energy storage for solar energy applications. Such biomimetic structures, inspired by natural plants, help avoid the leakage of phase change materials in the porous and improve overall performance of heat transfer.

The other recent progress is concerned with the application of radiative cooling coating inspired by nature solutions to building for sustainable built environment. This work provides a novel strategy for designing, fabrication, and applications of high-performance radiative cooling materials.

Speaker Bio:

Yuying Yan had BSc in Internal combustion engine engineering at Jilin University in 1982, MSc in Thermal Science Engineering at Shanghai Institute of Mechanical Engineering in 1986; He studied PhD at City, University of London from later 1992 in electrohydrodynamic enhancement of phase change process & nucleate boiling sponsored by ORS award from the UK Vice Chancellor Committees and Mars Confectionery; and was awarded PhD in Mechanical Engineering in early 1996. After taking research & academic positions at University of Surrey and Nottingham Trent University, respectively, he joined University of Nottingham since 2004, and was promoted to full Professor of Thermofluids Engineering since 2011. His took a few management roles at University of Nottingham before 2021 including Course Director, Head of Research Group, Faculty Director of Global Engagement.

Prof. Yan’s research covers widely range of thermofluids engineering including heat transfer enhancement, phase change, nanofluids and nature inspired solutions for energy efficiency and thermal management. He received Design & Nature Award & U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Scientist Awards in 2004, Royal Academy of Engineering Research Exchanges with China and India Award 2011, etc., He was an elected Fellow of International Society of Bionic Engineering in 2015, Yangtze River guest professor in 2015, and Li dak sum Chair Professor at UNNC in 2017, WSSET fellow in 2020. After chairing the first International Symposium of Biomimetic Functional Surfaces and Fluids in 2009, he has chaired or co-chaired over 10 international conferences/events. He has authored or co-authored over 450 papers including about 300 journal papers. He serves as Associate Editor for Elsevier Journal “Case Studies in Thermal Engineering”, and Senior Editor for Elsevier’s e-Prime - Advances in Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Energy. He also holds editorial board membership at International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Scientific Reports, Journal of Bionic Engineering, Thermal Science & Engineering Progress, Energy Storage & Saving, and Automotive Innovation.

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