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Topic · Computational Mechanics

Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer

Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer is a research topic within Computational Mechanics. Science Explorer counts 29k research works in it since 1950. 9.9% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on the dynamics of drop impact on surfaces, including phenomena such as drop splashing, spreading, and coalescence. It explores topics related to surface tension, multiphase flow, level set methods, spray cooling, and the Leidenfrost phenomenon.

  • Drop Impact
  • Surface Tension
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Multiphase Flow
  • Level Set Method
  • Spray Cooling
  • Interface Reconstruction
  • Liquid Jet Instability
  • Coalescence of Drops
  • Leidenfrost Phenomenon
Research works
29k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
2.8k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.9%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+9%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
50% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer

Which countries lead Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer research?

By volume, China and the United States publish the most (2.6k and 641 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 2.6k works
  2. 2 United States 641 works
  3. 3 India 415 works
  4. 4 Russia 283 works
  5. 5 France 280 works
  6. 6 Germany 271 works
  7. 7 Japan 235 works
  8. 8 United Kingdom 192 works
  9. 9 South Korea 142 works
  10. 10 Canada 124 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 49.7%United States: 12.5%India: 8.1%Russia: 5.5%6 others listed: 24.2%50%largest
China2,552 · 49.7%United States641 · 12.5%India415 · 8.1%Russia283 · 5.5%6 others listed1,245 · 24.2%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer research?

By volume in 2022-now, Russian Academy of Sciences publishes the most Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer research, followed by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Chinese Academy of Sciences.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 135 works
  2. 2 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 122 works
  3. 3 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 102 works
  4. 4 Xi'an Jiaotong UniversityChina 90 works
  5. 5 Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 77 works
  6. 6 Tsinghua UniversityChina 65 works
  7. 7 Dalian University of TechnologyChina 56 works
  8. 8 Northwestern Polytechnical UniversityChina 54 works
  9. 9 Beihang UniversityChina 52 works
  10. 10 Harbin Engineering UniversityChina 50 works

Who are the leading researchers in Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer include George M. Whitesides, Kai You Wang and Lei Jiang.

  1. 1 George M. Whitesides United States 267k citations
  2. 2 Kai You Wang China 224k citations
  3. 3 Lei Jiang China 214k citations
  4. 4 Hua Zhang Singapore 196k citations
  5. 5 William A. Goddard United States 182k citations
  6. 6 N. Zhou France 155k citations
  7. 7 Markku Kulmala Finland 145k citations
  8. 8 Shi Xue Dou Australia 142k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer?

The most cited paper in Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer is "Volume of fluid (VOF) method for the dynamics of free boundaries" (C.W. Hirt, B.D. Nichols, 1981), with 16,098 citations. Next come "A continuum method for modeling surface tension" (10,368) and "Purity of the sacred lotus, or escape from contamination in biological surfaces" (6,882).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Volume of fluid (VOF) method for the dynamics of free boundaries C.W. Hirt, B.D. Nichols · Journal of Computational Physics 1981 16,098
2 A continuum method for modeling surface tension Jeremiah U. Brackbill, D.B. Kothe, Ch. Zemach · Journal of Computational Physics Jun 1992 10,368
3 Purity of the sacred lotus, or escape from contamination in biological surfaces Wilhelm Barthlott, Christoph Neinhuis · Planta 30 Apr 1997 6,882
4 Bubbles, drops and particles L.G. Leal · International Journal of Multiphase Flow Jun 1979 5,330
5 A Level Set Approach for Computing Solutions to Incompressible Two-Phase Flow Mark Sussman, Peter Smereka, Stanley Osher · Journal of Computational Physics Sep 1994 4,839
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer research done?

The largest centres of Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Shanghai (China), Xi'an (China) and Nanjing (China). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Tomsk, Darmstadt and Novosibirsk.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 507 works
  2. 2 ShanghaiChina 193 works
  3. 3 Xi'anChina 191 works
  4. 4 NanjingChina 129 works
  5. 5 HangzhouChina 103 works
  6. 6 HarbinChina 98 works
  7. 7 WuhanChina 98 works
  8. 8 MoscowRussia 92 works
  9. 9 ParisFrance 90 works
  10. 10 TianjinChina 84 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. TomskRU · 35.7 works12×
  2. DarmstadtDE · 31.3 works11×
  3. NovosibirskRU · 70.2 works10×
  4. ZhenjiangCN · 65.2 works9.9×
  5. MianyangCN · 31.7 works9.5×
  6. KharagpurIN · 26.6 works8.9×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer than the world average.

See Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer on the map

Where is the best place to study Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer?

Among universities, judged by research, Xi'an Jiaotong University, City University of Hong Kong and Jiangsu University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%30%mean 17.91%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Jiangsu UniversityCity University of H…Shanghai Jiao Tong U…Xi'an Jiaotong Unive…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Xi'an Jiaotong UniversityChina 70.113.1%9.8×90 +16.4%
2City University of Hong KongChina 69.817.4%6.7×20 +76.9%
3Jiangsu UniversityChina 67.917.7%11.3×48 +90.2%
4Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityChina 67.113.4%5.0×77 +46.4%
5Dalian University of TechnologyChina 66.116.2%11.1×56 -1.2%
6Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityChina 65.926.6%3.2×15 +71.6%
7Beihang UniversityChina 63.614.7%8.9×52 +29.2%
8Beijing Institute of TechnologyChina 63.416.3%7.1×44 +40.5%
9Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyChina 62.717.4%4.4×42 +52.3%
10Shandong University of Science and TechnologyChina 62.226.3%4.5×12 +149.9%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer, country by country

Is Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 9% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2024. The fastest-growing topics are Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.028% in 2024.

still counting0.010%0.020%0.030%Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer0.024% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer9.9% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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