International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 55 (2012) 6293–6294

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

In Memoriam

Professor Yasuo Mori (1923–2012)

Professor Yasuo Mori, an outstanding leader in the international
heat transfer community and a superb educator, Professor Emeritusof the Tokyo Institute of Technology, passed away on March 20,
2012, at the age of 89. Professor Mori was born in Tokyo on February 24, 1923, grew up in the family of parents, two brothers and asister. He attended the university in the deteriorating environmentof war-torn years. By the late summer of 1945 the Paciﬁc War wasover, and shortly afterward he ﬁnished his college education. He belonged to the generation who experienced social disruption andeconomic hardship brought by the war. His experience in these difﬁcult years helped in the development of his characters that valued
hard work, dignity, justice, and international collaboration.
He graduated from Dai-Ichi High School, a gate way to Tokyo
Imperial University (presently, the University of Tokyo), in 1942.
At the University he enrolled in the department of aeronauticalengineering, and earned the bachelor’s degree in October 1945.
He was on the way to become a junior faculty member there, butthe department was closed in 1946 at the behest of the U.S. government who was busy clipping the remnants of military technologies in postwar Japan. Having seen the career path at theUniversity of Tokyo closed he landed a research job in a government laboratory, the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research(called RIKEN), in 1947. In 1953 he moved to the Tokyo Instituteof Technology (Tokyo Tech), and in a few months was appointed
as associate professor. During this period he submitted a doctoral
thesis to the University of Tokyo, and was granted the Doctor ofEngineering degree in 1956. In 1961 he was promoted to professor,and had been with Tokyo Tech until his retirement in 1983. In theﬁnal year at Tokyo Tech he also served as adjunct professor at the
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2012.05.061

Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo. In the succeeding period of 1983  1988, he continued teaching and research at
the University of Electro-Communications in the suburb of Tokyo.
After his retirement from the teaching job he consulted for aninstrument manufacturing company, Tokyo Keiso, for a few years.
In 1990 he was recruited by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to become an advisor and senior scientist for a US/Japan joint research
project at the Paciﬁc International Center for High Technology, inHonolulu, Hawaii. He had served there for two years, then, retired
to quiet life in his home town in the western suburb of Tokyo.
In the early 1960s a young Yasuo Mori earned recognition fromthe heat transfer research circle in the U.S. by his work on thebuoyancy effects in forced laminar convection ﬂow over a horizontal ﬂat plate published in the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer. Thework was conducted at Cornell University where he stayed as aFulbright visiting scholar during 1959  1960. In this work he useda perturbation expansion technique to solve a non-linear problem
where vertically applied buoyancy was superposed on a horizontally developing boundary layer ﬂow. Later at Tokyo Tech, he conceived a more powerful methodology to solve complex threedimensional convection heat transfer problems. The ﬁrst step ofanalysis was to identify a non-dimensional governing parameterin the problem. Asymptotic solutions were then obtained by theperturbation expansion in a range of small parameters, and byproper modeling in a range of very large parameters. Experimental
data provided information for connecting these asymptotic solutions. This technique was applied to the analysis of ﬂow and heattransfer in tubes and ducts under the inﬂuence of various bodyforces. The results obtained by several graduate students under
his tutelage were distilled to a set of concise formulas for use by
the designers of spiral tube heat exchangers, coolant paths of electric generators and other equipment.
During his entire academic career Professor Mori had expanded
his research to a wide range of subjects concerned with thedevelopments of energy sources and the efﬁcient utilization ofenergy. In an article he wrote in 1983 for the Journal of Japan
Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME), he summarized his
research activities in three categories. The objective of research inthe ﬁrst category was to establish a systematic knowledge basefor heat transfer phenomena that involve similar mechanisms.
Convection heat transfer under the effect of various body forces
was the subject of research in this category. Research work in thesecond category was associated with long-term national projects,
yet motivated by the needs for understanding of underlying physics. One of the projects to which Professor Mori had made commitments for many years was aimed at the development of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) power generation plant. Important research
topics for this project were heat transfer from plasma in the duct
to the electrode, shockwave formation, and combustion in MHD
channels. Professor Mori and several generations of his graduate

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In Memoriam / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 55 (2012) 6293–6294

students worked on these topics. He also extended his research repertoire to other subjects of high-temperature heat transfer arisingfrom another national project on multi-purpose gas reactors. Research in the third category was characterized by the applicationof a same theoretical method to the analyses of physical processes
in different settings. He cited the work on enhancement of condensation heat transfer on a sharply pointed ﬁn tip as an example inthis category. In this example, the technique to deal with a singularity problem on the leading edge of an object placed in single-phaseﬂow was applied to the analysis of two-phase ﬂow on the ﬁn tip.
Professor Mori always directed his attention to the problems ofsocial and technological importance. Besides his work on MHD andgas reactors, he extended his research interest to the nitrogen oxide
and carbon dioxide issues. He also played a leading role in the projects on the utilization of geothermal and ocean thermal energy.
While such large-scale projects were largely run by practicing
engineers, he consistently emphasized the role of academics inproviding industrial designers with solid and accurate scientiﬁcknowledge base. He demanded convergence of theory and experiment in arriving at a conclusion, not by lop-sided work of either.
Besides, he applied conceptual tools of physicist to the solution ofengineering problems. He emphasized the physics-based approachin his classroom teaching of thermal engineering. In an attempt toencourage the physics-based approach in education of other ﬁeldsof mechanical engineering he took the initiative in founding adepartment at Tokyo Tech, named Department of Physical Engineering (‘physical’ for ‘the science of physics’), in 1968. His tenet
regarding the research beneﬁted the graduates of his laboratory
who numbered more than 300 (including undergraduates who performed BS thesis work). Most of them went to work in the industry,and remembered his teaching during their career. Many of them
kept pride in having their names as co-authors of the papers published in journals and conference proceedings. Professor Mori wasan author and co-author on more than 300 papers and 15 books.
Professor Mori left his legacies in the Japanese heat transfer
community. He was a founding member of the Heat Transfer Society of Japan, and served as its president in 1978. He took the initiatives in developing the Society’s organization, enhancing its
ﬁnancial foundation, and creating the scholarly award for young
researchers. He also contributed to the development of Japanesemechanical engineering community through his ofﬁcial services
in the JSME. He served as a JSME board of director four times in
the 1960s and 1970s, and vice president in 1978.
Professor Mori made efforts to establish channels of international collaboration in heat transfer research for his peers andyounger generations of researchers and engineers. He chaired theboard of International Affairs during his tenure at the JSME boardof directors. Through the International Cooperation Program
initiated by him the JSME is now supporting bi-national andmulti-national thermal engineering joint conferences with its
counterparts of various countries. He played a pivotal role in organizing the International Heat Transfer Conference in Tokyo in 1974,
and the ﬁrst Japan/US Heat Transfer Seminar in Tokyo in 1980. He
himself served as the principal co-organizer of the ﬁrst Japan/USThermal Engineering Joint Conference, Honolulu, 1983, and theJapan/US Heat Transfer Seminar in San Diego, 1985. He made commitments to the development of International Centre for Heat andMass Transfer (ICHMT) since its foundation in the early 1970s. He
served as president of ICHMT during 1990  1994. His tenure coincided with the period for the Centre to move from Yugoslavia toTurkey. He exercised his leadership to streamline the Centre’s organization, thus helped to establish the Centre as we know today. He
served as an editor or advisory board member for major interna-tional journals; International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer(1973  1986), International Communications in Heat and MassTransfer (1976  1986), Energy Developments in Japan(1980  1987), and Heat Transfer Japanese Research(1975  1986). He was invited to present keynote lectures at majorinternational conferences and universities. He served as Springer
Distinguished Professor, the University of California, Berkeley, in1984. In the international heat transfer community Professor Mori
is remembered by his quick and intellectual developments of histhought, sharp manner of discussion at conference sessions, yet asa congenial and likable gentleman on private occasions.
The list of awards bestowed on Professor Mori by the Japanesesocieties and government includes; JSME best paper award fourtimes (1963, 1973, 1980, 1984), the Award for Person of Distinguished Services to the Promotion of Science and Technology(Tokyo municipal ofﬁce, 1982), the Award for Signiﬁcant Contributions to the Development of Large-Scale Technology (MITI Japan,1986), JSME Thermal Engineering Division Award (1989), and theOrder of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon (1999).
Professor Mori also received honors from the American Society ofMechanical Engineers; the Heat Transfer Memorial Award (1982)
and Max Jakob Memorial Award (1988). The International Centrefor Heat and Mass Transfer awarded him A.V. Luikov Medal in1988. He was elected to foreign associate of the U.S. National
Academy of Engineering in 1986.
Professor Mori was known as an avid sports player since hisyouth. He played baseball and skiing with his students, and in later
years excelled in golf. Many of his former students challenged himon the golf course, but bit their lips realizing that he was above
them even in pastime play. Professor Mori is survived by his wife
Reiko to whom he was married for 59 years. Mrs. Mori remembered him as a warmhearted and gentle husband, and could not
imagine that he demanded rigor and discipline on his students intheir research work. Those students who experienced his sternguidance, however, sensed that he had a genuine warm heartand never lost conﬁdence in anyone who studied under him. Hearing his death the alumni of his Tokyo Tech laboratory staged amemorial event one day. Many stories about Professor Mori weretold in the event. Professor Mori’s achievements stand out not only
in research but in inspiring so many generations of his students
who now remember him with great respects, pride, and warmth.

⇑Wataru Nakayama
Ryozo Echigo
Takayoshi Inoue
Nobuhide Kasagi
Yasuo Kurosaki
Shigeo Maruyama
Toshio Miyauchi
Shigefumi Nishio
Ken Okazaki
Ichiro Tanasawa
Akira Yabe
Yukio Yamada
Hideo Yoshida⇑ Corresponding author.
Address: ThermTech International,
Oiso 255-0004, Japan
E-mail address: watnakayama@aol.com (W. Nakayama)
Available online 21 June 2012