The Assembly for International Heat Transfer Conferences (AIHTC) organizes the series of quadrennial International Heat Transfer Conferences (IHTCs) – the Heat Transfer Olympics – since 1966. The origin of the IHTCs is an International Discussion on Heat Transfer held in London (Chair, O.A. Saunders) and Atlantic City (Chair, A.P. Colburn) 1951; this was regarded as IHTC-1. Ten years later, a succeeding International Heat Transfer Conference was held in Boulder 1961 and in London 1962, which was regarded as IHTC-2. After IHTC-3 held in Chicago 1966, IHTCs have been continuously held every four years having the recent one IHTC-16 held in Beijing 2018 followed by the next two in Cape Town 2022 and Rio de Janeiro 2026. It has been organized in 17 cities of 10 countries. For over 67 years, IHTC has been the largest worldwide forum on heat transfer (HT) and thermal science and engineering (TSE), and devoted to meet the scientific and social challenges as the thermal energy usage, environmental sustainability, material processing, bio-science, etc. The mission of IHTC has become more important with the rapid increase in the activity of human society.
The development and progress in HT and TSE research made in the half-century after IHTC-3 are recorded in the archive as IHTC Digital Library (IDL) in cooperation with Begell House Inc. More than ten thousand papers and hundreds of keynote papers are available to access through the IDL. “Fourier lecture” — a plenary lecture delivered by the president of AIHTC in each IHTC — covers the history and future of HT and TSE; the lecture is named after Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768-1830) to transmit his legacies and pioneer spirits to the next generation.
AIHTC is composed of officers and delegates. The officers are President, Vice President, Secretary and past Presidents. The Chair of the immediate past IHTC is appointed to AIHTC president and the Chair of the coming IHTC is appointed to Vice President, thus their terms including that of Secretary are four years between the successive IHTCs. Thirty six delegates from 18 member countries (i.e., two from each) are nominated at present. Regular meetings are held every two years with one held at the IHTC.
The role of AIHTC is:
- to determine the places and hosting countries of future meetings and provide fruitful events succeeding the IHTC's history,
- to create a framework for productive discussion on issues of TSE as well as enhance personal interactions among the scientists and engineers of the TSE community,
- to stimulate the TSE community towards innovative researches,
- and to increase the visibility of TSE among international academic activity of science and engineering.
The place and hosting country of the future meeting is determined eight years before the conference. The venue of IHTC-19 in 2030 will be determined at the AIHTC meeting held at IHTC-17 in August 2022. The member countries who wish to invite IHTC-19 shall submit proposals to AIHTC by April 2022. After their oral presentations at the AIHTC meeting, the place will be determined by the AIHTC delegates' votes.
We are now making an effort to to realize a solid platform for worldwide TSE community to effectively contribute to complex and difficult issues of our times. In particular, cooperation among
If your have inquiries related to AIHTC or to this website please contact with us through the following address:
Email: info
aihtc.org
A special logo for the IHTC was authorized by the AIHTC on October 16, 2013, and introduced in 2014 for the first time since the conference was held, in 1951. The logo shown here offers a metaphorical expression of multi-modal and multi-scale heat transfer phenomena. The center sphere with the small sphere on a ring stands for the sun and the earth, or a molecule with an orbiting electron, while the outer arcs represent flame, heat conduction, and radiation. The logo was designed by Kazuya Tatsumi at Kyoto University.
This logo is now used on the conference homepage, conference program, documents, USB drive, other related items, and by the IHTC Digital Library that Begell House has established.
The full IHTC logo includes the description of IHTC/Since 1951. However, the following simplified version with the image only can be used as the logo.
