THE 2020
NUKIYAMA MEMORIAL AWARD
Presented toRONGGUI YANG
at the Second Asian Conference on Thermal SciencesOctober, 2021
by the Heat Transfer Society of Japan

Ronggui Yang
Dr. Ronggui Yang was born on October 25, 1973. Dr. Yang is currently anendowed Professor of Energy and Power Engineering at Huazhong University ofScience and Technology in Wuhan, China. Dr. Yang received his BS degree in
Thermal Engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 1996, a MS degree inEngineering Thermophysics from Tsinghua University in 1999, a MS degree inMEMS from UCLA in 2001, and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering under Professor
Gang Chen from MIT in 2006. He started his faculty career as an Assistant Professorof Mechanical Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder since January 2006,
was promoted to Tenured Associate Professor in 2011 (2 years ahead of the tenureclock), and was promoted to Full Professor in 2016, where he was on leave since
Summer 2018 but remained his position until December 2019. At the University ofColorado Boulder, he was also a Faculty Fellow for the Materials Science andEngineering Program and a Faculty Affiliate for the CU/NREL Renewable andSustainable Energy Institute.
Dr. Yang’s research focuses on understanding the fundamentals of thermal energy
transport in micro-/nano- scales and developing scalable micro-/nano-structured
materials and surfaces to advance the energy conversion and thermal management
technologies. He has made outstanding contributions to the following research areas:
1) Developing numerical and experimental tools for understanding thermal andthermoelectric transport in novel micro/nanostructured materials, such as micro-/nanostructured polymers, two-dimensional materials, hybrid inorganic-organic materials,
and nanocomposites; 2) Developing scalably-manufactured micro-/nano-structured
surfaces for enhancing phase-change heat transfer processes (boiling, condensation,evaporation and spray cooling); and 3) Developing scalably-manufactured low-cost
hybrid materials for radiative sky cooling and the deployment of radiative sky coolingfor buildings, vehicles, cold chains, and consumer products.
Dr. Ronggui Yang has published approximately180 journal papers, delivered
approximately150 invited seminars, and is associated with more than 140 invited andcontributed conference talks and posters that garnered numerous best
paper/presentation/poster awards with his advisees. His journal papers are highly cited.

Per ISI Web of Science (SCI), Dr. Yang has an annual citation more than 1000 times
since 2017, a total citation more than 10000 times and an H-index of 48 as of July 20,
2020. Per Google Scholar, Dr. Yang has an annual citation more than 2000 times since
2018, a total citation more than 15500 times and an H-Index of 62 as of July 20, 2020.
His innovative research has won him numerous awards including the 2017 Top 10
Physics Breakthroughs by Physics World, the 2014 ITS Young Investigatorin Thermoelectrics from International Thermoelectric Society (ITS), the 2010
ASME Bergles-Rohsenow Young Investigator Award in Heat Transfer, an NSF
CAREER Award in 2009, the MIT Technology Review’s TR35 Award, the DARPA
Young Faculty Award in 2008, the 2005 Goldsmid Award from ITS, and a NASA
Tech Brief Award in 2004.

The Nukiyama Memorial Award
The Nukiyama Memorial Award has been established in 2011 by the Heat Transfer
Society of Japan to commemorate outstanding contributions by Shiro Nukiyama as anexcellent heat transfer scientist. Nukiyama addressed the challenges of the boilingphenomena and published a pioneering paper which clarified these phenomena in theform of the Nukiyama curve (boiling curve). This epoch-making work was done in
1930s, when heat transfer research was in an early stage and Nukiyama himself wasyoung, under forty years old. The Nukiyama Memorial Award shall be bestowed to ascientist under/ about fifty years of age, once every two years in the field of Thermal
Science and Engineering.

Past Recipients2012 Peter Stephan2014 Gang Chen
2016 Mamoru Takahashi
2018 Ruzhu Wang
Board of the 2020 Nukiyama Memorial Award
S. Maruyama (Chairperson)
Y. Takata (Vice Chairperson)
J. H. Lienhard V
J. R. Thome

S. J. Kim
K. Suga
Z. ZhangShiro Nukiyama 抜山 四郎 (1896 – 1983)
Shiro Nukiyama was born in 1896 in Tokyo, Japan. He graduated from Tokyo
Imperial University, and immediately started his professional career as a Lecturer ofTohoku Imperial University (currently Tohoku University). He was appointed
Associate Professor in 1921. He visited England, Germany, Switzerland and theUnited States in 1922~24. He was appointed Professor in 1926. In subsequent years
he actively conducted boiling heat transfer research.
In 1934, Nukiyama published a pioneering paper*) which was entitled “TheMaximum and Minimum Values of the Heat Q Transmitted from Metal to Boiling
Water under Atmospheric Pressure”. This paper clarified and provided an overview ofthe boiling phenomena in the form of the Nukiyama Curve (boiling curve).
In this work, Nukiyama made an excellent experiment using a metallic wire or ametal wire+), in which temperature and heat flux are evaluated accurately, and foundthat the relation between degree of superheating and heat flux is not monotonous, andthat a maximum heat flux points appears in the nucleate boiling region and a minimum
heat flux point appears in the film boiling region. He also found the hysteresis behavior
that occurs in the transition region between the nucleate boiling and film boiling.
Furthermore, he suggested that the boiling curve can be drawn even in the transition
region if the state of the boiling water can be changed quasi-statically.
This was an epoch-making work which clarified the physics of boiling phenomena
first. It has been highly appreciated in the international academic world of heat transfer.
Also, it has become a guideline to heat transfer engineering for the design and control
of combustion boilers and/or steam generators, and as such it has laid the foundationof modern energy technology. The Nukiyama Curve appears in every textbook of heattransfer today. Nukiyama is a great person in the international academic world of heattransfer.
In 1956 Nukiyama retired from Tohoku University, and was granted the title ofProfessor Emeritus. He served as the President of Heat Transfer Society of Japan in
1963~64. He received the Max Jacob Memorial Award in 1968. In 1983, he passed
away in Sendai, Japan.

*) : Journal of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, vol. 37, no. 206, pp. 367-374, June 1934. The
English translation was published twice in International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, in vol. 9, pp.
1419-1433, 1966 and in vol. 27, pp. 959-970, 1984.