Socioeconomic impacts of heat transfer research

Heat transfer research affects almost every sector of the economy, yet its impacts have not been well studied or communicated to date. To address this issue, this article evaluates recent heat transfer research trends and which parts of the economy are likely to be affected by it. Analysis is done through keywords in heat transfer journals, US NSF awards, US patents, and trends in US economic sectors. This study indicates that if heat transfer research helps to attain a 10% conversion efficiency gain in all relevant sectors of the US economy, ~ 110 billion dolars of annual value added could be generated.