International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 46 (2003) 4987–4988
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

Professor D. Brian Spalding on his eightieth birthday

This year, Professor D. Brian Spalding had his 80thbirthday on January 9, 2003. On this happy occasion, wereﬂect upon his professional achievements and his invaluable contributions to heat and mass transfer. At theoutset, it is important to note that he was one of thefounders and a past editor of this journal. Through hissuperb creativity and vision, he has made a long-lasting
impact on the scientiﬁc state of this subject and on theinternational cooperation surrounding it.
His research contributions are characterized by thevariety of their topics and by their ability to create abreakthrough. He has contributed to major advances inheat and mass transfer, combustion, turbulent ﬂow,
computational methods, and multiphase phenomena.
His creative ideas have produced quantum leaps in ourunderstanding and predictive capability and thus opened
the door to many new scientiﬁc opportunities.
The strength of his research emanates from his desireand ability to generalize a given concept, formula orprocedure. His early work on convective mass transfer
created a novel framework for a number of disparate
phenomena. Later, he embarked on a ‘‘uniﬁed theory’’for boundary layers, which allowed him to predict wallboundary layers, jets and wakes, wall jets, and ductﬂows by the same general technique. The numerical
doi:10.1016/S0017-9310(03)00367-3

method for boundary layers was subsequently extended
to multidimensional non-boundary-layer ﬂows. His
work on turbulence models, turbulent combustion, andmultiphase ﬂow exhibits the same type of urge and capability to reach extraordinary heights through boldgeneralization.
Professor Brian Spalding was born in England onJanuary 9, 1923. He got the BA and MA degrees fromthe University of Oxford and PhD and ScD fromCambridge. For a major part of his professional career,
he worked as a Professor of Heat Transfer at Imperial
College, London. Since 1970 onwards, he headed thecompany CHAM, where the outcome of his academic research could be applied to industrial problems. He has had a large number of students, colleagues,and associates, who beneﬁted from his approach toscientiﬁc problems and his vision for the future developments.
The many honors and awards bestowed upon him are
a ﬁtting tribute to his valuable professional contributions. They include the highest recognitions in the ﬁeld ofheat transfer and combustion. He has received the Max
Jakob Award, the Bernard Lewis Medal, and the Luikov
Medal. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London,a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a4988

S.V. Patankar et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 46 (2003) 4987–4988

Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a Memberof the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, and a Memberof the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences. He has
worked on the editorial boards of a number of scientiﬁcjournals and has played a major role in establishing andrunning the International Center for Heat and Mass
Transfer.
At the age of 80, Professor Spalding continues to be
active in research, technical writing, and professionalpresentations. He is currently working on a new generation of turbulence models based on the concepts oftwo-phase ﬂow. Just as a transient two-phase ﬂow
contains the intermittent presence of the two ﬂuids, aturbulent ﬂow can be imagined to be an interplay oflaminar and turbulent phases. This concept has farreaching implications for turbulence models for buoyant
ﬂows and combustion.
On the occasion of his 80th birthday, his students,
colleagues, and friends throughout the world would liketo thank him for his tremendous professional contributions and wish him good health, happiness, and morescientiﬁc breakthroughs.
Suhas V. Patankar
J.P. Hartnett
W.J. Minkowycz