hr. .I. Hear Man Transfer.
PergamonPress Ltd. Printed

Vol. 27, No. 9, pp. 1437-1438,m Great Bntain

1984

FROM the point of view of this journal, the mostimportant achievement of Owen Saunders is that heand Ernst Eckert founded it. No doubt part of theinitiative came from Robert Maxwell, who was thenlaying the foundation of his scientific publishingempire; and the persistent endeavours of Aleksei
Vasilievich Luikov were an essential ingredient.
However, it was Saunders and Eckert who chose theeditors and who set the journal moving in the directionthat it has since followed.
Owen Saunders went on to do many other things ofpublic interest, some of which are referred to in HughFord’s article in this issue of rJHMT(pp. 1435-1436);
and more can be learned from the “Second Owen
Saunders Lecture : Internation~ Flame Research” byJack Chesters, published in the June 1975 issue of theInstitute of Fuel.

Science, however, is a solitary and private activity, so
one can often learn most about a scientist by looking at
his earliest works, when he was still unencumbered bysupervisory responsibilities. A list of Sir Owen’spublications is appended to this article. I will refer tojust two typical ones, concerned respectively withradiation and natural convection.
The first is “Notes on some radiative heat transferformulae” published in the August 1929 issue of Proc.
Phys. Sot. Of the many interesting features of the article
not the least is the by-line : “‘Received April 251929 andin revised form June 261929”. And it was published inAugust! Knowledge of heat transfer may have beenrather primitive 55 years ago; but referees, editors andprinters all worked faster, it seems, than we do in 1984.
The formulae in the article are of a kind which will
nowadays be found in undergraduate textbooks; but
they are in those books because Saunders and hiscontemporaries derived them, recognized their importance and expressed them in usable forms.
Pioneers are often undervalued because their hardwon discoveries have become commonplace, rather as
Shakespeare is thought by the ignorant to be
uninventive because his plays consist merely of strungtogether quotations. Saunders was one of thosepioneers; and his 1932 book The Calculation of Heat
Transmission, written with the collaborationandguidance of Margaret Fishenden, has been drawn uponby numerous later textbook authors. Their own
textbook,entitled An Introduction to Heut Transfer andpublished by Oxford University Press in 1950, has been
copied by many.
The second article I will refer to is “Effect of pressure
upon natural convection in air”, published in theNovember 1936 Proc. R. Sot. (Received April 1936, by
the way ; so the Royal Society could also publish fast in
those days.) Apart from the work of Petavel, publishedin 1901, this was the first systematicstudyoftheeffectofpressure on natural-convection
phenomena;
and,because the results were appropriately expressed interms of the dimensionless groups which we would now
call the Nusselt and Rayleigh number, they provided avaluable confirmation of the laws of similarity.
I well remember coming across this paper while I wasa research student, and being inspired by it to believethat high-pressure experiments on models of correspondingly small geometric scale would provide acheap and effective means of predicting the performance of heat-exchange equipment. As it turned out, thepractical obstacles of this line of advance proved to be
major ones, and nowadays computer simulations areusually preferred to those provided by physical models.
Nevertheless, the notion that one may predict thebehaviour of one piece of equipment by studying thebehaviour of another, is one of the most provocativeideas in applied science; and it came alive in my own
mind after reading Saunders’ paper.
Saunders transmitted
his interests in naturalconvection to several ofhis students, one of whom, Alan
Ede, became one of the first editors of this journal; andhis concern with radiation found practical employment
in his long involvement with the International Flame
Research Foundation.
It is perhaps a pity that Sir Owen’s career as a
‘private’ research worker had so soon to make room forthe more ‘public’ one of department head, chairman ofmany committees, and consultant at large. However, hewas one of the few specialists in heat transfer in theUnited Kingdom at a time when the importance of thissubject achieved full recognition among engineers ; andit was his good or ill fortune to have been called by hisformer research chief, Professor Lander, to ImperialCollege, which was later designated as Britain’s
pacemaker for the expansionof technologicaleducation.
Even Isaac Newton accepted the position of Directorof the Royal Mint ; so Owen Saunders has followed arespectable precedent in shouldering in his later years
public responsibilities. Certainly he has shown no signof being weighed down by them, or of allowing them totransform him into an administrator rather than ascientist. Having resisted their pressures until his 80thbirthday, he can surely do so indefinitely.

1437

D. BRIAN SPALDING
LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

Notes on some radiation heat transfer formulae, Proc.
Phys. Sm. August (1929).
Notes on some geometrical radiation problems, Phil.
Mag. August (1929).
Similitude and the heat flow through a granulatedmaterial, Phil. Msg. June (1932).

1438

D. BRIANSPALDING

4. Note on the Blackie heat flow gauge, J. Scient. Instrum.
November (1933).
5. Some measurementsof convection by an optical method(with M. Fishenden and H. D. Mansion), Engineering(1935).
The effect of pressure upon natural convection in air, Proc.
R. Sot. November (1936).
Heat transmission-somerecent advances(with M.
Fishenden and C. H. Lander), World Power Conf. (1936).
Errorsin gas temperaturemeasurement(with M.
Fishenden), Symp. on Gas Temperature
Measurements,December (1938).
9. On the motion of a fluid heated from below (with R. J.
Schmidt), Proc. R. Sot. April (1938).
10. Natural convection in liquids, Proc. R. Sot. July (1939).
11. Heat transfer in the flow of gas through a bed of solid
particles (with H. Ford), J. Iron Steel Inst. (1940).
12. The use of oxygen for improving altitude performance ofaircraft engines, ARC Secret Paper 5399 ICE 1401.
13. The thrust from aero engine ejector exhaust systems(3 parts), ARC Engine Comm. (1943).
14. Some simplified heat transfer data (with M. Fishenden),Inst. Fuel November (1945).
15. Heat transfer data-physicalconstants of gases (with M.
Fishenden), J. Inst. Fuel April (1946).
contribution,Conf.
Waste
Heat
16. Regenerators-a
Recovery, April (1946).
17. Simplified heat transfer data for design calculations-I(with G. Brown and M. Fishenden), BSRA Report No. 17,June (1948).
18. Flame radiation research joint committee reports of 1949,Trials at Ijmuiden, Introduction(with J. J. Broeze and G.
Ribaud).
19. Simplified heat transfer data for design calculations-II(with H. Bacon and M. Fishenden), BSRA Report No. 54(1950).
in fluid dynamics-one
dimen20. Modern developmentssional flow, ARC Paper 12,874 FM 1406 (1950).
21. The gas turbine in aviation, Continental Daily Mail, 15June (1950).
22. Gas turbines for aircraft, Engineering October (1950).
23. Heat transfer to air passing through heated porous metals(with P. Grootenhuis
and R. C. A. Mackworth),
GeneralDiscussion on Heat Transfer (1951).
S. Smoleniec), General
24. Heat transfer in regenerators(withDiscussion on Heat Transfer (1951).
25. Radiating properties of luminous furnace flames (with G.
Ribaud and J. E. De Graaf), General Discussion on HeatTransfer (1951).
of flame radiation. Results of international
26. Investigation
research group using an experimental furnace at Ijmuiden(with G. Ribaud, J. E. de Graaf and M. W. Thring), Iron
Coal Trades Rev. November (1951).
radiation
trialsin Holland,flame
21. International
Engineering 7 December (195 1).
28. Heat transfer in a nozzle at supersonic speeds (with P. H.
Calder), Proc. Inst. Me& Engrs August (1952).
29. Nuclear
power in relation
to conventional
power
resources, Atom. Scient. News September (1952).
bv Schlieren
techniqueof the30. Some observations
propagationof flames in a closed vessel (with-A. Egerton,
A. H. Lefebvre and N. P. W. Moore), IV Symp. (Int.)on Combustion(1953).

31. Convection from an isolated heated horizontal cylinder
rotating about its axis (with J. T. Anderson), Proc. R. Sot.
(1953).
station at Ijmuiden,
32. Flame radiation. New experimental
Times Sci. Rev. Autumn (1954).
33. The chemistry and physics of combustion part II (with D.
B. Spalding), Joint Conf. on Combustion(1955).
34. Heat transfer from a rotating disk (with E. C. Cobb), Proc.
R. Sot. (1956).
35. Heat transfer in pipe flow at high speeds (with J. E.
Bialokoz), Proc. Inst. Me&. Engrs (1956).
36. A study on piston-ring lubrication (with S. Eilon), Proc.
Inst. Mech. Engrs (1956).
37. Engineering
heat transfer. A review of recent developments, Br. Ass. 1957, Engineering 184 (47174), 313 (1957).
38. Heat transfer from a flat surface to a parallel stream ofwater (with A. Ede), IME (1958).
39. Some studies of radiating flames in a small gas turbine
type combustion chamber (with D. J. Weeks), J. Inst. FuelJune (1958).
40. Heat and the engineer, BA Glasgow Meeting 1958, reprint
for Adomt Sci. No. 58, September (1958).
41. Productionengineering at Imperial College (with J. M.
Alexander and R. C. Brewer), J. Inst. Prod. Engrs 38(7),351 (1959).
42. Supercriticalsteam : some thermodynamics
considerations (with E. H. Cole), Steam Engr 29(344), July (1960).
43. The scientist’s contribution
to mechanical engineering,Presidential
address to the Instituteof MechanicalEngineers, I Mech E, October (1960).
44. Biographicalmemoir of Sir David Pye, Biographical
Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 7 (1961).
45. Naturalconvection
in viscous oil, ASME Mech E
InternationalDevelopments
in Heat Transfer, Part V
1003 (1961).
46. Some reflections on progress in engineering heat transfer,
Proc. Int. Heat Transfer Co& ASME (1961).
47. Engineering and the sciences, Chart. M‘ech. bngr i(5), 261(1962).
48. Studies offlow and heat transfer associated with a rotating
disc (with P. D. Richardson),
J. Me& Engng Sci. S(4),336-342 (1963).
49. The degree structure,
Reporton the Convocation
Conference held at Senate House, University of London,
14 November (1964).
educationat university
level in western
50. Engineering
Europe, EUSEC Education Conference, Oslo, Norway,
September (1969).
51. Oil film temperatureand thickness measurementson thepiston rings of a diesel engine (with R. D. Wing), Proc. Inst.
Mech. Engrs 186 (1972).
52. Universities and society, Foundation
Address, Universityof Rhodesia, May (1972).
Tolansky
53. Can science solve the energy problem?
Memorial
Lecture, Royal Sot. of Arts Vol. CXXIII,March (1975).

Books
7he Calculation of Heat Transmission (co-authoredby M.
Fishenden). HMSO, London (1932).
An Introduction to Heat Transfer (co-authoredby M.
Fishenden). Oxford University Press, New York (1950).