International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 45 (2002) 701±702

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Professor Suhas V. Patankar on his 60th birthday

Professor Suhas V. Patankar celebrated his 60thbirthday on February 22, 2001. It is with great pleasurethat we mark this happy occasion, by tracing some of
the important events in his professional life andhighlighting a few of his numerous contributions toengineering education and practice, particularly in theareas of computational ¯uid dynamics and heattransfer.
Professor Patankar was born in India. He obtained
the B.E. and M.Tech. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Poona and the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, respectively. In 1967, hewas awarded the Ph.D. degree in MechanicalEngineering by Imperial College, London. His professional career spans three continents. He was an assistantprofessor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur,
from 1967 to 1970. He then worked at Imperial College,London, UK before moving to Canada, where he taught
at the University of Waterloo from 1973 to 1974. In1974, he joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis,
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where he taught for 25 years. He became Professor
Emeritus in 2000. He now focuses his creative talents
and energy mainly on the development and applicationsof computational ¯uid dynamics (CFD), as the President of Innovative Research, Inc., a CFD company hefounded in 1987.
Professor Patankar has authored or co-authored fourbooks and published over 100 journal articles. He has
worked on mathematical models for turbulence, combustion, chemical vapor deposition, radiation, andmetallurgical processes. Many of his papers are regarded
as seminal works in the subject of computational ¯uiddynamics and heat transfer. One of his 1972 papers, coauthored with Professor D.B. Spalding, won the ®rst
Classic Paper Award given by the Heat Transfer Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers(ASME) in 1997. In recognition of his research contributions to computational heat transfer, he was awarded
the 1991 ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award. He ison the editorial board of the Numerical Heat Transfer
Journal.

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J.C. Chai et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 45 (2002) 701±702

The impact of Professor Patankar's research contributions and teaching is enormous. His Ph.D. dissertation on a method for calculation of ¯uid ¯ow and heattransfer in boundary layers was a signi®cant breakthrough, and is the basis of his ®rst book on numericalmethods. The resulting Patankar±Spalding method andthe associated computer program became a very widelyused technique for the analysis of boundary layers. His
subsequent work in the 1970s led to a general computational procedure, called SIMPLE, for the prediction ofmultidimensional recirculating ¯ows. SIMPLE and its
variants form the basis of nearly all ®nite-volume
methods for the prediction of ¯uid ¯ow. His 1980 book
Numerical Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow is extremely
popular and remains, to this day, one of the most respected works on this subject. This book has beentranslated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Persian, andRussian. His 1991 book Computation of Conduction
and Duct Flow Heat Transfer is used for introducing
undergraduate students to computational heat transfer.
It has been translated into Japanese and Korean.
The numerous journal papers that cite Professor Patankar's publications are another testimony of the exemplary quality of his research work and its impact. In part Aof the Numerical Heat Transfer journal, his publications
have been cited in 15 and 15 issues (out of 16 issues peryear) in 1999 and 2000 respectively. His works were citedin 24, 21, and 18 issues (out of 24 issues per year) of theInternational Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer in years
1998, 1999, and 2000, respectively, and in all issues of theASME Journal of Heat Transfer in 1999 and 2000. According to the Science Citation Index (SCI-Expanded,Web of Science) of the Institute for Scienti®c Information,
since 1994, Professor Patankar's publications have beencited in over 4000 journal papers.

Professor Patankar's contributions to engineering
education are equally impressive. His eagerness to share
his knowledge with his students is evident in his lecturesand discussions. He conducts his lectures with enthusiasm, exuberance, and unusual clarity, often using commonly encountered scenarios to explain complex
phenomena and abstract concepts, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He has supervised 35
completed Ph.D. theses at the University of Minnesota.
He has also given a large number of short courses anddelivered many invited lectures on CFD and its applications, at universities, professional organizations, industries, and international conferences around theworld. In recognition of his outstanding teaching at theUniversity of Minnesota, he received the 1983 George
Taylor Distinguished Teaching Award and the 1989±
1990 Morse Alumni Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education.
On the occasion of his 60th birthday, his students
and colleagues join with the editors of this journal tohonor Professor Suhas V. Patankar and wish him many
more productive years, continued good health, andhappiness with his family and friends.

J.C. ChaiB.R. BaligaK.C. Karki
K.M. Kelkar
A. Radmehr
E.M. Sparrow
W.J. Minkowycz