Introduction

Heat Transfer 2012 is the twelfth conference in the well established series on Simulation and Experiments in Heat Transfer and its Applications.  The objective of the series is to provide a forum for presentation and discussion of advanced topics, new approaches and application of innovative advanced computational methods and experimental measurements to heat and mass transfer problems

Research and developments of simulation methods for solving and understanding heat transfer problems continue to be important because these topics are frequently of a complex nature and different mechanisms like heat conduction, convection, turbulence, thermal radiation and phase change may occur simultaneously.  Typically, applications are found in heat exchangers, gas turbine cooling, turbulent combustions and fires, electronics cooling, melting and solidification etc.  Heat transfer might be regarded as an established and mature scientific discipline, but it has played a major role in new application fields such as sustainable development and reduction of greenhouse gases as well as for micro- and nanoscale structures and biomedical-engineering. Of particular importance in the last two decades are applications pertaining to the radiofrequency and thermal dosimetry related to human exposure to non-ionising electromagnetic fields and consequent tissue heating.

In engineering design and development, reliable and accurate computational methods are requested to replace or complement expensive and time consuming experimental trial and error work.  Tremendous advancements have been achieved during recent years due to improved simulation methods and computer developments to achieve efficient and rapid calculations. Accurate experimental investigations are of fundamental importance to validate the numerical calculations.