International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 4499–4501
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Personal Report

Professor Ryozo Echigo

Professor Echigo was born on January 5, 1937. Hereceived his B. Eng. degree (1960) and M. Eng. degree(1962) in mechanical engineering, both from Tokyo
Institute of Technology. After one year as a staﬀ member at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, he enrolled in
the University of Tokyo, and received his D. Eng. degreein the ﬁeld of radiative heat transfer in 1966. He wassubsequently appointed as an assistant professor atKyushu University, advanced to an associate professor,and in 1977, became a full professor. In 1981, he renewed his long-standing relationship with the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Tokyo Instituteof Technology. He has also been an adjunct professor ofKyoto University since 1996. In 1997, he was madeProfessor Emeritus at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and simultaneously joined the Shibaura Institute ofTechnology, located in the heart of Tokyo. He also
served as Vice President of the Shibaura Institute ofTechnology from 2001 to 2003.
Internationally, Professor Echigo served as an associate editor of the International Journal of Heat andMass Transfer between 1982 and 1992, and as an executive committee member of the International Centre for
Heat and Mass Transfer in 1986. Domestically, he wasdoi:10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2003.10.042

the chairman of the Thermal Engineering Division ofthe Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1991,
President of the Heat Transfer Society of Japan in 1996,
and Vice President of the Japan Society of Energy andResources from 1997 to 2001. Between 1978 and 1996,
he played a key role in steering research on the eﬀective
use of energy under a Grant-in-Aid from the thenMinistry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture.
Professor Echigo has studied a wide range of topics
relating to thermal engineering, with a special emphasison thermal radiation and its application to the enhancement of heat transfer and combustion. A considerable
amount of his eﬀort has been devoted to the clariﬁcationof fundamental thermal phenomena as well as thedevelopment of novel energy-saving technologies.
Fortunately, at the start of his professional research
career, Professor Echigo, like Professor Masaru Hirata,
was supervised by Professor Niichi Nishiwaki at theUniversity of Tokyo; although Professor Nishiwaki often appeared strict, the overall situation oﬀered to thedoctoral course students was ideal, even when comparedwith those in more advanced countries at that time. His
three-year experience in the Nishiwaki Laboratory
was formative for Professor Echigo’s attitude toward4500

Personal Report / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 4499–4501

research and education. It is interesting to note that hisﬁrst paper, coauthored with Professor Nishiwaki in
1964, concerned the measurement of force acting onoars in rowing eights. This is because Professor Nishiwaki, whose interests were far-reaching, supported theJapanese rowing team prior to the Tokyo Olympics in
1964. As is evident from these facts, Professor Echigo’s
research carrier started in the well-organized Nishiwaki
Laboratory in the time of rapid growth of the Japanese
economy.
After Professor Echigo moved to the Department of
Nuclear Engineering at Kyushu University, his interest
was directed at heat transfer by gas–solid suspension
ﬂow under high-temperature or high-heat-ﬂux conditions. He collaborated with Professor Shu Hasegawa
and conducted diﬃcult measurements using a large-scale
experimental facility specially designed for gaseous suspensions. A series of theoretical studies on radiative heattransfer by a ﬂowing multiphase medium was publishedas three consecutive papers in International Journal ofHeat and Mass Transfer from 1972 to 1973. Thesemarked a major milestone in his research career becauseof the subsequent impact of the ﬁrst and second oil crises
and the environmental issues. Prior to the publication ofthese papers, the stay in Professor Wen-Jei Yang’sLaboratory at the University of Michigan from September 1969 to October 1970 as a visiting scholar was awonderful and memorable experience for Professor
Echigo.
During the transition periods from the Departmentof Nuclear Engineering to the Department of theMechanical Engineering, both in Kyushu University,and also from Kyushu University to the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Professor Echigo proposed aneﬀective energy conversion method between gas enthalpy and thermal radiation using porous media. This
concept originated in and was further simpliﬁed fromhis former studies on gaseous suspensions, because hehad introduced porous media ﬁxed in channels or ducts
instead of ﬂowing solid particles. The paper in which
the concept was ﬁrst proposed received an award fromthe Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1984, andprovided numerous seeds for later applications to energy saving.
As mentioned earlier, the Department of MechanicalEngineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology invited Professor Echigo to join them in 1981; this was 18
years after he had left the Institute. His period of 16
years as a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology was, without doubt, the golden era for both Professor Echigo and the Institute. Professor Yasuo Mori
and Professor Echigo served as Editor and Associate
Editor of the International Journal of Heat and MassTransfer, respectively. In addition to them, Professor
Naotsugu Isshiki, Professor Kozo Katayama, Professor
Wataru Nakayama, Professor Yasuo Kurosaki, Professor Akio Saito, and Professor Kunio Hijikata, to name afew, raised the Department of Mechanical Engineering
at the Tokyo Institute of Technology to a status as oneof the world’s centres of excellence in heat transfer research. In such a stimulating environment, Professor
Echigoenthusiasticallydeveloped
heat-transferenhancement as well as combustion on the basis of his
aforementioned energy conversion method. Simultaneously, he warmly nurtured many students, particularly
those coming from abroad. Although in those days
Professor Echigo was extremely busy with many
administrative tasks, it cannot be forgotten that he often
took time to demonstrate detailed derivations of governing equations to individual students.
One of the outstanding features of Professor Echigo
is his continuing and deep interest in thermodynamics.
About 10 years ago, he undertook to clarify the fundamental characteristics of the Joule–Thomson eﬀect using
a molecular dynamics simulation; although this study
has not yet been completed, he still entertains the hopeof controlling the inversion temperature by artiﬁciallymanipulating the structure of molecules. More basically,
he is currently involved in reexamining the principles
originally given by Carnot, Kelvin, Clausius, Gibbs,
Maxwell and Boltzmann. He is scrutinizing them without being obscured by conventional viewpoints. As atypical outcome, he proposed a new cycle that includes
isothermal processes for gas turbines. His new concepts
have frequently aroused creative controversy in the annual symposiums of various societies, and as a vigorous
discussant he has stimulated many young scientists aswell as senior professors.
Under the leadership of Professor Echigo, numerous
professors and doctors have come into their own. In
chronological order, they are Professor Koichi Ichimiya
at Yamanashi University, Professor Kouichi Kamiuto
at Oita University, Professor Kenji Fukuda at Kyushu
University, Professor Kuniyasu Kanemaru at Nagasaki University, Professor Akihiko Shimizu at Kyushu
University, Dr. Toshiro Ando at JAERI, Dr. Masato
Akiba at JAERI, Dr. Izumi Kinoshita at CRIEPI,Professor Yasuyuki Takata at Kyushu University,Professor Yoshio Yoshizawa at the Tokyo Institute ofTechnology, Professor Xuezhong Tang in China, Professor Toshio Tomimura at Kyushu University, Professor Hideo Yoshida at Kyoto University, Professor
Katsunori Hanamura at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Dr. Jae-Ho Yun in Korea, Professor Jugjai
Sumrerng in Thailand, Professor Ken-ichi P. Kobayashi at Meiji University, Dr. Shigeru Tada at thePersonal Report / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 4499–4501

Tokyo Institute of Technology, Professor Masaaki
Okuyama at Yamagata University, Dr. Tomoyuki
Sugiyama at JAERI, Dr. Angel M. Bethancourt inPanama, Dr. Jürgen G. Hoﬀmann in Germany, Dr.
Vladimir V. Martynenko in Belarus, and Dr. ChoYoung Han in Korea.
On behalf of his many students, colleagues andfriends, I wish him many more productive years, continued good health, and happiness.

4501

Hideo Yoshida
Kyoto University
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Kyoto, Sakyo-ku 606 8501
JapanTel./fax: +81-75-753-5255
E-mail address: yoshida@mech.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Available online 11 June 2004