Wilhelm Nusselt
German engineer (1882-1957) · Germany · On the map · Scientists · Died at 74
Ernst Kraft Wilhelm Nusselt was a German mechanical engineer whose work helped establish modern heat-transfer theory. His nondimensionalization of convective heat transfer led to a widely used framework for correlating heat-transfer data, including the dimensionless group now called the Nusselt number.
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![The thickness of the water film, y, and heat transfer coefficient, α, for the uppermost tube of a tube bank, with a tube diameter of 0.026 m, at a steam pressure of 1 atm, and a wall temperature of 90°C (from Nusselt's 1916 paper[25]).](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f5/Nusselt_1916_condensation_paper_Figure_7.png/500px-Nusselt_1916_condensation_paper_Figure_7.png)
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His theory of laminar film condensation, which identified the condensate film as the principal resistance to heat flow, yielded mathematical solutions still used today. Both results have become standard topics in heat-transfer textbooks.
