Heat Transfer Engineering, 28(12):968–972, 2007
C Taylor and Francis Group, LLC
Copyright 
ISSN: 0145-7632 print / 1521-0537 online
DOI: 10.1080/01457630701483463

Heat in History

The Heat Transfer Family of Kyushu
University
YASUYUKI TAKATA
Department of Mechanical Engineering Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
Kyushu University has been one of the most active universities in heat transfer research, especially in the field of boiling andcondensation. The heat transfer research in Kyushu University was initiated by Prof. K. Yamagata about 75 years ago. He
brought up a number of heat transfer professors including Prof. K. Nishikawa and his successors, and his group has beencalled the “Heat Transfer Family.” The present article introduces its history and the current status of heat transfer researchin Kyushu University.

Kyushu University, established in 1911 as one of the imperial universities, is located in Fukuoka City in the southwestof Japan. As seen from the map in Figure 1, Fukuoka City isgeographically close to major Asian cities and has the position
as the gateway to Asia in Japan. Because of this accessibility,
many heat transfer researchers frequently visit Kyushu University from overseas.
The heat transfer research at Kyushu University began by one
distinguished professor, Kiyoshi Yamagata, in 1932; since then,
Kyushu University has become a major heat transfer researchcore with a number of heat transfer researchers. Many years ago,
Professor J. P. Hartnett at the University of Illinois referred to
the research group of Kyushu University as “the Heat Transfer
Family” because he observed that the researchers were getting
along well so happily and friendly. The present article introduces
the history and the current status of the “heat transfer family” in
Kyushu University.
The founder of the family is Professor Kiyoshi Yamagata, as
seen in Figure 2. The pedigree of the family is shown in Figure 3, and the professors are summarized in Table 1. Readers canroughly understand the relationship between professors. Professor Yamagata graduated from the Department of MechanicalEngineering, Kyushu University, and was appointed as a lecturer
in 1927. He was promoted to an associate professor in 1929 andthen to a professor in 1940. In 1937, when he was an associate
professor, he started a lecture entitled “Applied Thermal SciAddress correspondence to Professor Y. Takata, Department of MechanicalEngineering Science, Faculty of Engineering, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka,
Nishi-ku, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan. E-mail: takata@mech.kyushu-u.ac.jp

ence,” which was the first lecture on heat transfer in Japan. His
first article on heat transfer, though it was in Japanese, was “On
the Heat Flow under the Furnace Hearth,” which appeared in the
Journal of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1932[1]. The first English paper was “A Contribution to the Theory of
Non-isothermal Laminar Flow of Fluids inside a Straight Tubeof Circular Cross Section,” which appeared in Memoirs of Faculty of Engineering, Kyushu University, in 1940 [2]. It should be
worthy of attention that the paper was cited in the famous textbook, Introduction to the Transfer of Heat and Mass, written by
Professor Eckert in 1950 [3].
Afterward, Professor Yamagata made outstanding achievements in the boiling and natural and forced convection of supercritical fluids. His ability lay not only in heat transfer research
but also in education. He brought up a number of heat transfer researchers and engineers with his motto of “Friendly andStrictly.” He left the university in the able hands of three distinguished professors, Kaneyasu Nishikawa, Shu Hasegawa, andTetsu Fujii. They and their staffs together with professors whojoined later from other institutions have become a big family
and have been in all their glory.
There remains an amusing story [4] about the chance of research on boiling heat transfer. During World War II, Professor
Yamagata and his family were evacuated from Fukuoka City tohis hometown to avoid the air raid. After the war, he alone returned to the university and was living in his laboratory, bringing
his bed in it. He used an Erlenmeyer flask instead of a kettle to
make a cup of tea. He often observed the boiling bubbles in theflask and was interested in their behavior. One night, Associate
Professor Nishikawa and a colleague came to see him at his

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Figure 1 Distance from Fukuoka City to other major cities in East Asia.

office. Professor Yamagata pointed at the flask and said to them,“The boiling bubbles seem to have a regularity, but they also
seem chaotic. Though the water is heated uniformly from thebottom, why do bubbles generate from the fixed points and notfrom everywhere?” Then he added, “So, Mr. Nishikawa, shall
we go at boiling research?” This was the initiation of boiling research at Kyushu University. After his retirement from Kyushu
University, Professor Yamagata served as the president of the

Figure 2 Professor Kiyoshi Yamagata.

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Heat Transfer Society of Japan and as the president of Ube National College of Technology, and passed away in 1971.
The history now moves on to the second generation. As mentioned earlier, Professor Yamagata left three successors. Professor Kaneyasu Nishikawa (see Figure 4) graduated from Kyushu
University in 1943. After two years of military service, he wasappointed as an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Professor Nishikawa made outstanding
contributions to boiling heat transfer by his monumental work of
two correlation equations of nucleate boiling, which are known
as Nishikawa-Yamagata’s equation [5] and the improved versionof Nishikawa-Fujita’s equation [6]. In addition to this achievement, he expanded his research field to film boiling, naturaland forced convection of supercritical fluids, boiling of liquid
helium, forced flow boiling of refrigerants, transition boiling,
and boiling of mixtures. These studies were performed together
with young professors of third generation. Professor Nishikawa
served as the president of the Heat Transfer Society of Japan(HTSJ) and the vice-president of JSME. After his retirementfrom Kyushu University, he served as the President of Kurume
National College of Technology and consecutively as a professor at Kurume Institute of Technology and a technical advisor
at Kyushu Electric Power Co., Inc.
Professor Shu Hasegawa rejoined the family in 1960 after
several of years research experience at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, and he was appointed as a professor
at the Department of Nuclear Engineering. His research interest
was nuclear thermal-hydraulics. In particular, he proposed a new
type of cooling system for a fusion reactor that involves the utilization of gas-solid multiphase flow, asserting that fine carbon
particles suspended in helium gas absorb and emit radiation; consequently, heat transfer is much enhanced. This study was performed with Professor Ryozo Echigo, now Professor Emeritus atTokyo Institute of Technology, and Professor Akihiko Shimizu.
Professor Hasegawa and his successor, Professor Kenji Fukuda,
have studied experimentally and theoretically the instability ofmulti-channel two-phase flow of a nuclear reactor. Professor
Hasegawa brought up numerous professors and doctors, including the present author. Like Professor Nishikawa, Professor
Hasegawa served as the presidents of HTSJ, Kurume National
College of Technology, and, after his retirement from Kyushu
University, Kurume Institute of Technology, and died in 2001.
Professor Tetsu Fujii was appointed as an associate professor in 1961 and then was promoted to a professor in 1967 at
the Research Institute of Industrial Science after five years as
a researcher at the Central Research Institute of Electric Power
Industry. He has made a number of outstanding achievements inthe field of free convection and condensation. In 1991, he published a book entitled Theory of Laminar Film Condensation[7]. Later, the institute was reorganized and changed its nameto the Research Institute of Advanced Material Study. Professor Fujii invited Professors Hiroshi Honda and Hiroyuki Ozoe
from Okayama University and Professor Noriyuki Imaishi fromTohoku University to his research institute. He served as thepresident of HTSJ and the president of the Japan Society ofvol. 28 no. 12 2007

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Table 1 Heat Transfer Professors of Kyushu University in Chronological Order
Name of professor

Department

Term

Kiyoshi Yamagata
Mechnical engineering
Kaneyasu Nishikawa Mechnical engineering

1927–1964
1946–1984

Shu Hasegawa
Tetsu Fujii
Kotohiko Sekoguchi
Ryozo Echigo
Takehiro Ito
Osamu Miyatake
Suguru Yoshida
Yasunobu Fujita
Hiroshi Honda
Takashi Masuoka
Hiroyuki Ozoe
Noriyuki Imaishi
Motoo Fujii
Kenji Fukuda
Akihiko Shimizu
Shigeru Koyama
Haruhiko Ohta
Hidoe Mori
Yasuyuki Takata
Hiroshi Takamatsu
Jun Fukai

1960–1989
1961–1994
1962–1991
1966–1982
1966–2002
1964–2002
1967–2003
1968–2004
1988–2004
1998–2005
1987–2005
1988–present
1968–present
1978–present
1979–present
1983–present
1981–present
1981–present
1984–present
1985–present
1988–present

Nuclear engineering
IAMS
Chemical engineering
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering
Chemical engineering
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering
IAMS
Mechanical engineering
IAMS
IAMS
IAMS
Nuclear engineering
Nuclear engineering
IAMS
Aeronautics and Astronautics
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering
Chemical engineering

Research area
Supercritical fluid, nucleate boiling, forced and natural convection
Boiling heat transfer, steam engineering, Nishikawa-Yamagata correlation,
Nishikawa-Fujita correlation
Thermosyphon, enhancement of radiation heat transfer with solid particle suspension
Film condensation, natural convection
Two-phase flow
Combustion, enhancement of radiation heat transfer by porous media
Film boiling, cryogenics, thermodynamic cycle
Flush evaporation
Flow boiling
Nucleate boiling, Nishikawa-Fujita correlation
Film condensation, transition boiling
Convection in porous media
Natural convection in enclosures
Heat and mass transfer in crystal growth
Cooling of electronic devices, thermophysical property measurement
Two-phase flow instability
Cooling system for nuclear fusion reactor
Refrigeration and air-conditioning systems
Boiling under microgravity
Flow boiling
Phase change, wettability effects
Bioengineering
Thermal energy storage

Figure 3 Pedigree of heat transfer professors in Kyushu University.

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Figure 4 Professor Kaneyasu Nishikawa.

Thermophysical Properties. After his retirement from Kyushu
University, he served as a professor at East Asia University. He
is still enthusiastic about film condensation and has published abook on it in 2005 [8].
Next came the third generation. At the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Professor Nishikawa left three professors: Professors Takehiro Ito, Suguru Yoshida, and Yasunobu
Fujita. During their era, a variety of boiling research applications were developed, such as a numerical analysis of convective film boiling and helium cryogenics by Professor Ito, forced
flow boiling by Professor Yoshida, and a correlation of nucleateboiling (Nishikawa-Fujita’s equation [6]) and boiling of mixtures by Professor Fujita. Professor Fujita served as the president of HTSJ and is called the “Boiling Master” by his overseas
friends. Later, in 1998, Professor Takashi Masuoka joined thefamily from Kyushu Institute of Technology and made outstanding achievements in the field of heat transfer in porous media.
At the Research Institute of Advanced Material Study, professors invited or brought up by Professor Tetsu Fujii have beenworking in a variety of fields in heat and mass transfer. Amongthem, Professor Hiroshi Honda’s theoretical analysis on film
condensation [9] is well known. He built up a set of complicatedbasic equations and obtained the solution that predicts the film
thickness of condensate on a finned surface.
As these professors have already retired from Kyushu University, the current professors are the fourth generation. As of
the year 2007, there are ten or more heat transfer laboratories,
and the total number of heat transfer researchers in Kyushu University is definitely the largest in Japan. In the Department of
Mechanical Engineering, there are three laboratories, including
the author’s. Professor Hideo Mori, a successor of Professor
heat transfer engineering

Figure 5 Experimental apparatus for developing heat pump systems using
multi-component refrigerants (courtesy of Professor Koyama).

Yoshida, has been studying and expanding his research field
in flow boiling. Professor Hiroshi Takamatsu, who used to be
associated with Professor Honda at the Research Institute of Advanced Material Study, moved to the Department of MechanicalEngineering and is now devoted to bio heat and mass transfer.
In the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Professor
Haruhiko Ohta, who moved in from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been making outstanding achievements inthe field of boiling under microgravity. In the Department ofChemical Engineering, Professor Jun Fukai took over the laboratory originated by Professor Osamu Miyatake and is now
studying heat transfer related to thermal energy storage and effective energy use.
In recent years, Kyushu University has dramatically changed
structurally and geographically. The Research Institute of Advanced Materials Study was reorganized to the Institute for Materials Chemistry and Engineering. Under this new name, Professor Shigeru Koyama, who took over from Professor Tetsu
Fujii, moved to the Faculty of Engineering Sciences in April in
2006. He has been successively devoted to heat and mass transfer related to heat pump systems with a large experimental setup(see Figure 5), as well as to refrigeration and air conditioning.
In addition to the reorganization, the Faculty of Engineering has just relocated to the new campus (see Figure 6),
which has a larger area and great potential for various research
projects such as the Hydrogen Campus Project. Many hydrogenvol. 28 no. 12 2007

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Figure 6 New campus and hydrogen research area of Kyushu University.

research projects are ongoing there. One of these is the establishment of the Research Center of Hydrogen Industrial Useand Storage (HYDROGENIUS) founded by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST).
In HYDROGENIUS, measurement of various hydrogen thermophysical properties at high pressure is planned as one of theresearch projects. Professor Motoo Fujii, who currently belongs
to the Institute for Materials Chemistry and Engineering, also
serves concurrently as a group leader of HYDROGENIUS. The
author and the other young associate professors are also involvedin the project as the members of the research group.
It has been 75 years since Professor Yamagata started heattransfer research in Kyushu University. During these years, anumber of professors and doctors have been produced from thefamily. We hope that the prospect of the family will be permanently brilliant, and moreover, that all family members will getalong with each other “friendly and strictly.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to express his special thanks to Professor Emeritus Kaneyasu Nishikawa for his excellent memory
and materials that contain various histories of heat transfer research in Kyushu University, as well as to Professor Emeritus
Yasunobu Fujita for his assistance and encouragements and Professor Satish Kandlikar at RIT for giving the author an opportunity to write this history.
REFERENCES[1] Yamagata, K., On the Heat Flow under the Furnace Hearth, Journal of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, vol. 35, no.
179, pp. 202–209, 1932 [in Japanese].

heat transfer engineering[2] Yamagata, K., A Contribution to the Theory of Non-isothermal
Laminar Flow of Fluids inside a Straight Tube of Circular Cross
Section, Memoirs of the Faculty of Engineering, Kyushu University, vol. 8, no. 6, pp. 365–449, 1940.
[3] Eckert, E. R. G., Introduction to the Transfer of Heat and Mass,
McGraw-Hill, New York, p. 102, 1950.
[4] Nishikawa, K., Studies on Steam Engineering, Note on the Last
Lecture at Kyushu University, 1984 [in Japanese].
[5] Nishikawa, K., and Yamagata, K., On the Correlation of Nucleate
Boiling Heat Transfer, International Journal of Heat and Mass
Transfer, vol. 1, pp. 219–235, 1960.
[6] Nishikawa, K., and Fujita, Y., Correlation of Nucleate Boiling
Heat Transfer Based on Bubble Population Density, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, vol. 22, pp. 233–245,
1977.
[7] Fujii, T., Theory of Laminar Film Condensation, Springer-Verlag,
New York, 1991.
[8] Fujii, T., Film Condensation Heat Transfer, Kyushu University
Press, Fukuoka, Japan 2005 [in Japanese].
[9] Honda, H., and Nozu, S., A Prediction Method for Heat Transfer during Film Condensation on Horizontal Low IntegralFin Tubes, Journal of Heat Transfer, vol. 109, pp. 218–225,
1987.

Yasuyuki Takata is a professor of thermofluid
physics in the Department of Mechanical Engineering Science, Kyushu University, Japan. He received
his Dr. Eng. in 1984 from Kyushu University. His research area covers phase change heat transfer, micro
JT cooler, micro heat transfer devices, and thermophysical properties of hydrogen, as well as a databaseof thermophysical properties of fluids. He is a fellow of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers(JSME), an editor-in-chief for Journal of Thermal
Science and Technology, and an associate regional editor for Applied Therm.

vol. 28 no. 12 2007