33rd UIT (Italian Union of Thermo-fluid dynamics) Heat Transfer Conference

The 33rd UIT (Italian Union of Thermo-Fluid Dynamics) Heat Transfer Conference was organized by the Dept. of Industrial and Information Engineering and Economics, University of L'Aquila (Italy) and was held at the Engineering Campus of Monteluco di Roio, L'Aquila, June 22-24, 2015. The annual UIT conference, which has grown over time, came back to L'Aquila after 21 years. The scope of the conference covers a range of major topics in theoretical, numerical and experimental heat transfer and related areas, ranging from energy efficiency to nuclear plants. This year, there was an emphasis on IR thermography, which is growing in importance both in scientific research and industrial applications. 2015 is also the International Year of Light. The Organizing Committee honored this event by introducing a new section, Technical Seminars, which in this edition was mainly devoted to optical flow visualization (also the subject of three different national workshops organized in L'Aquila by UIT in 2003, 2005 and 2008). The conference was held in the recently repaired Engineering buildings, six years after the 2009 earthquake and 50 years after the beginning of the Engineering courses in L'Aquila. Despite some logistical difficulties, 92 papers were submitted by about 270 authors, on eight different topics: heat transfer and efficiency in energy systems, environmental technologies and buildings (32 papers); micro and nano scale thermo-fluid dynamics (5 papers); multi-phase fluid dynamics, heat transfer and interface phenomena (16 papers); computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer (15 papers); heat transfer in nuclear plants (6 papers); natural, forced and mixed convection (6 papers); IR thermography (4 papers); conduction and radiation (3 papers). The conference program scheduled plenary, oral and poster sessions. The three invited plenary Keynote Lectures were given by Prof. Antonio Barletta (University of Bologna, Italy), Prof. Jean-Christophe Batsale (Arts et Metiers Paris Tech, Talence, France) and Prof. Walter Grassi (University of Pisa, Italy). The two invited Technical Seminars were given by Dr. Maurizio Santini (University of Bergamo, Italy) and Prof. Giovanni Tanda (University of Genova, Italy). There were also 13 oral sessions and three poster sessions. This special issue collects the five papers presented in the plenary sessions (keynote lectures and technical seminars) plus 60 papers selected from those presented and discussed during the congress. The UIT 2015 conference has been a useful occasion to stimulate discussion, further the understanding of heat transfer and related phenomena, present the state-of-the-art of some topics, discuss emerging trends and promote collaborations. We hope this issue will maintain and extend some of these features. A special thank you is due to the Organizing and Scientific Committees, to the sponsors and to all the participants.