<p>How important is heat and mass transfer in various areas of fluid mechanics research?
I'm taking this course right now. Currently, I don't find the course all that interesting. The professor teaching it is a condescending ******* also which makes it worse.</p>
<p>I really like fluid mechanics though and might do research in one of its areas for grad school. I know heat and mass probably plays a significant role in some fluid mechanics research topics, but it's not that many right?</p>
<p>Well there is definitely a lot of fluid flow application in heat and mass transfer especially in convective heat/mass transfer. Depending on the type of fluid dynamics you plan on studying there could be a lot to no application of heat/mass transfer, but from my personal experience all three classes were very similar just used a different governing equation.</p>
<p>Heat transfer and fluid mechanics are practically the same subject and are intimately coupled, especially when talking about compressible flow where solving the flow typically means solving the heat transfer as well.</p>
<p>Oh I see. </p>
<p>What about a materials science/engineering introduction class? Does it have any relevance to fluids? I find that subject a bit dull.</p>
<p>I don’t know what your introductory materials science covers.</p>
<p>From the outline it looks like we’ll be taking a lot about strengthening mechanisms, defects, phase diagrams, and some main material properties. We will talk about metals, alloys, ceramics, polymers, and composites.</p>
<p>Wait, you say it’s dull and you haven’t taken it yet? Isn’t that jumping the gun a bit?</p>
<p>Yeah, I guess. I’m judging the book by its cover here. So far, the class hasn’t really interested me.</p>