International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 109 (2017) 657–658

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

In Memoriam

Professor D. Brian Spalding (1923–2016)

It is with a profound sense of loss that we note that Professor D.
Brian Spalding passed away on November 27, 2016 after a brief illness. This happened less than two months before his 94th birthday. He was an intellectual giant, who made ground-breaking
contributions to heat transfer, mass transfer, combustion, turbulence, multi-phase flow, and computational fluid dynamics.
Professor Spalding was born on January 9, 1923 in New Malden,England. He got his BA and MA degrees from Oxford University andhis PhD in 1952 from Cambridge University. His thesis was on thecombustion of liquid fuels, where he employed an innovative idea
using the extrapolation of laboratory measurements. He joined thefaculty of Imperial College, London in 1954 and was offered in
1958 the youngest ever professorship, at that time, at Imperial College. He retired from Imperial College in 1988. During this period,
he also held visiting professorships at various universities in theUSA. In 1974, he founded a software and consulting company
known as CHAM. He actively worked at this company till the veryend.
Professor Spalding was a prolific writer, who published many
books and countless journal papers. He lectured all over the world
and attracted doctoral students from many countries. His writing
and speeches were very clear, fluent, lucid, and interesting. He
used the English language with mastery, precision, and skill, perhaps due to his education at Oxford. His impact will live on formany years, not only through his publications but also throughthe hundreds of researchers that he has guided and inspired.
It is not surprising that Professor Spalding’s contributions havebeen recognized by numerous awards and honors. They include:
Max Jakob Award, Luikov Medal, Bernard Lewis Medal, BenjaminFranklin Medal, Global Energy Laureate, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Foreign Memberof the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Foreign Member of the

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2017.02.038

Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He was given honorary doctorates
by Imperial College and by Moscow Energy Institute.
Professor Spalding was a founding editor of the International
Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer. He was also responsible for creating the International Center for Heat and Mass Transfer (ICHMT).
In May 2008, ICHMT organized an international conference onComputational Heat Transfer in Marrakech, Morocco to celebrate
his 85th birthday. In July 2013, at the ASME Summer Heat Transfer
Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he was honored on theoccasion of his 90th birthday. At the forthcoming ICHMT conference on Computational Heat Transfer in May 2017 in Naples, Italy,
there will be a special symposium in memory of Professor
Spalding.
Professor Spalding’s work is noteworthy not only for the amazing variety of subjects he has covered but also for the strong impactof his inventions. None of his work makes just an incremental contribution. It is always a significant breakthrough, opening the door
to many scientific opportunities that did not exist before. His visionand creativity provide a quantum increase in our scientific understanding and predictive capability. His specific scientific contributions represent lifelong fireworks of his creative ideas.
Even before he made his breakthrough contributions to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), he had made revolutionary
advances in combustion, mass transfer, and boundary layer theory.
He was always motivated by his desire for a predictive capability,
which made his fundamental work extremely useful in practicalapplications. Whereas most fluid dynamics researchers would beconcerned only with fluid flow, Spalding envisaged a general unified framework that included heat and mass transfer, combustion,turbulence, and two-phase flow, as well as the conventional singlephase flow. The strength of his research emanates from his desireand ability to generalize a given concept, formula or procedure. His
work always showed the urge and capability to reach extraordinary heights through bold generalization.
His development of the finite-volume methodology was a brilliant combination of mathematical derivation and physical insight.
He saw the finite-volume equations as expressions of the conservation principles (such as the conservation of mass, momentum, andenergy) applied to a small volume. He also recognized that theequations could be viewed as the integrated forms of the parent
differential equation with a subdomain weighting function. Hewas one of the first researchers to identify that the convection
terms needed a different treatment when the flow rates were large.
This led him to invent the upwind, exponential, and hybrid
schemes. This single invention was a significant breakthrough; itenabled us to solve problems at high Reynolds numbers. Other-658

In Memoriam / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 109 (2017) 657–658

wise, all prior attempts were successful only at very low Reynolds
numbers (which were of limited practical interest).
Professor Spalding did not invent the staggered grid; it wasalready in use by the group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
However, Spalding was the first one to explain why we needed it.
This understanding was crucial to any later attempts to modify,extend, or replace the staggered grid. His formulation of the SIMPLE algorithm was a significant development; it provided a convenient way of calculating three-dimensional elliptic flows andessentially replaced the prior techniques using stream function
and vorticity.
As the method for computing complex three-dimensional flows
was being formulated, Spalding rightly addressed the issue of computing turbulent flows. He created a framework for the ‘‘mathematical models of turbulence”, in which he was able to fit earlyattempts such as Prandtl’s mixing length theory and propose
advanced models such as the two-equation turbulence models. It
is this combination of a calculation method for complex flows
and a satisfactory representation of turbulence that made CFD apractical tool for industrial problems. Otherwise, the calculation
method would have remained an academic exercise.
Professor Spalding did not stop at formulating turbulence models for fluid flow. In his usual style of generalization, he extended
the models to turbulent heat and mass transfer and to turbulent
combustion. Later, he created CFD techniques for two-phase or
multi-phase flows. Here, he interestingly saw the possibility tocome up with a new kind of turbulence model. A turbulent flow
can be seen as a two-phase flow that is made up of a laminar fluid
and a turbulent fluid. Similarly, he proposed a new model for combustion by considering the fluid as a two-phase mixture of burnedand unburned gases. These ideas have the potential to explain andpredict certain experimental observations that are beyond thereach of conventional turbulence models.
Engineering is obviously a practical field. The success of engineering research lies in the widespread adoption of its outcome
in industry. Professor Spalding was not only successful in creating

CFD methods of practical utility but also in establishing them inindustry. A large international community of researchers and practicing engineers adopted his methods and put them to practicaluse. Subsequently, Spalding saw that he could transfer the fruitsof university research to industry by providing consulting services
and, more effectively, computer programs. His work in his consulting company CHAM led to the construction and distribution of thefirst commercial CFD product PHOENICS.
By now, commercial CFD products have become essential
strategic tools for all industries dealing with fluid flow and heattransfer. There is a billion-dollar industry for creating and supporting CFD products. All this advance can be traced to the bold visionand early actions of one man, Brian Spalding.
In addition to his prolific scientific accomplishments, Professor
Spalding had a passion for art, music, poetry, and the Russian language. In fact, he began to write poetry by translating the works of
the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and subsequently wrote hisown poetic creations. He was a warm and sensitive individual witha keen sense of friendship and concern for others.
We remain forever grateful to Professor Spalding for making
valuable contributions to heat transfer and for setting an inspiring
example for all of us.

⇑Suhas V. Patankar
Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota and President, Innovative
Research, Inc., Minneapolis, MN 55447, USA⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: patankar@inres.com
W.J. Minkowycz
James P. Hartnett Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University ofIllinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607-7022, USA
Available online 24 February 2017