Geoffrey Hewitt produced much original work on diffusion, fluid flow and heat transfer in channels, heat exchangers and porous media, particularly for multiphase systems. In the 1960s, Geoffrey established the basic characteristics of two-phase flow and was the first to demonstrate experimentally the mechanism of ‘burnout’. The link between theory and experiment was summarised in 1970 in his well-known book with Nicholas Hall Taylor, Annular Two Phase Flow, and his book on Measurement of Two Phase Flow Parameters was published in 1978. Subsequently, Geoffrey identified for the first time the existence of ‘disturbance waves’, the dominant interfacial phenomenon in annular two-phase flow. He made important original contributions to our understanding of droplet motion. In 1967, he initiated and managed the Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow Service, which provides industrial design and operating information on heat exchangers for 180 companies. He was elected President of the Heat Transfer Society in 1978, and received the 1980 Donald Q. Kern Award of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
Professor Georrfey Hewitt FREng FRS died on 18 January 2019.
Subject groups
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Engineering and Materials Science
Fluid dynamics, Engineering, chemical, Nuclear technology, Instrumentation
