Customer Reviews

Heat Transfer

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Good:

- A nice amout of examples.

- Whatever is explained is explained pretty well.

- Friendly style of writing.

The Bad:

- No solution manual.

- Some mistakes in the solved examples.

The Worst:

- There is no focus on the heat transfer sceince itself - the equations are "dumped" on you with no explanations/development or even some example experiments that were made to get to the equations. The focus is on application of the equations to engineering problems and methods of solving differential equations.

The bottom line:

This book will not give you an understanding of the heat transfer science, but the ability to solve heat transfer problems. If that's what you look for - this is your book. Otherwise, look for something else.

Holman's book is very good. Despite the minimal errors, his approach is very technical and well constructed. There is extensive coverage of mathematical derivations which make it very versatile for the comprehensive engineering analysis. I recommend it for beginning Heat Transfer students or as a handy reference.

I have used this book in University in my Mechanical Engineering Bachelors degree and unfortunately combined with a poor lecturer this book did not provide any favours. I bought Schaums Outlines "Heat Transfer" to compliment this text, and the two combined achieved the end result.
10 Years later I am now using this book again, and I am still finding errors in the text, poor worked real life examples and explanation of the values (I would be crucified if I didn't show previous calculation of some values, but Holman manages to get away with it). This text is not really work friendly, as the examples given are quite clunky, and are reasonably basic. Don't buy it thinking it will be easy to use. The problems in the back of the chapters aren't worked, which contribute to the frustration in the use of the main text and adaptation to more complex problems. A nice feature is the references at the end of the chapter, allowing you to put this text down and search for a specific text book for your requirements.

This is an awful choice for an introduction to this material. The text doesn't go into detail on the sections, and the examples can be better. Errors in the text can screw you up to.

When I was assigned the book I thought the worst thing about it was the obscene price. Then I saw the book. This is quite possibly the ugliest book cover I have ever seen. Did someone seriously pay someone else to make it? Ugh.

Then I *used* the book. Oddly enough, I was taking two heat transfer courses at the time, a very conceptual one through the Materials Science department (Incropera text) and a very application-based one through Mechanical Engineering. [For the record, the ME course was an easy way to fulfill an MSE "tech elective" requirement.] This is the book used in the ME course.

If you're actually planning to analyze heat and mass transport in your regular life, this is a great reference book, with tons of empirical formulas and constants and other wonders. If you're planning to publish papers in heat transfer, you may want to consider Frank Incropera's text to gain a solid mathematical understanding of the subject. There were several numerical errors that jumped out at me when I was using the book, especially considering that this is the ninth edition. Keep your eye for this sloppy editing and I think you'll find this book to be pretty okay.

The use of Microsoft Excel in this book is probably the smartest move on the part of Dr. Holman to teach Heat Transfer. The author's approach is impressively reader centered and he avoids pedantic and unnecessary over-facing analysis. Each chapter develops along very clear and logical lines. There are a wealth of examples and exercises that encourage readers to test and develop their knowledge imaginatively. Both students and practicing engineers/professionals aiming to update their knowledge will find that this book presents an accessible, interactive and challenging mastery of the subject. Again, the use of Excel spreadsheets for heat transfer is practical and invaluable to practicing professionals like myself and I wish more authors will follow suit.

The book was as specified by the seller. I received it by the expected time. The purchase was a very pleasant one. In general, it was a great experience.

When I used this book Heat transfer was a new subject to me. I had taken a mass transfer class before, and a lot of the principles are similar to mass transfer. I thought the book taught heat transfer very well. The reason i am giving the book 4 stars is because the practice problems and examples are too simple. There are not too many difficult thinking problems.

This is a widely used Mechanical Engineering textbook which I use as a reference manual for my work. I recommend this to anyone who is involved in heat transfer calculations, application, and field troubleshooting of heat exchange equipment in a fluid process.

A classical. Required reading for heat transfer design in heater convection sections. I found it simple and practical. By the way, I am looking for a new book (as mine was stolen).

Marco Flores