The Centre for Energy and Thermal Sciences of Lyon (CETHIL) is a joint centre between the National Institute for Applied Sciences (INSA Lyon), the French National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS) and the University Claude-Bernard Lyon 1. About 115 collaborators work for the Centre. The applications of the investigations performed at CETHIL span over a wide range of fields, including electronics, the nuclear energy sector, aerospace, the automotive industry, the design of buildings and renewable energies.

Key strengths and expertise

Research at CETHIL covers many topics linked to heat transfer and energy-related systems and devices. CETHIL is one of the key centers at the national and international levels where a so-large range of spatial and temperature scales are investigated: from the nanostructure to the building and urban area scales, from liquid helium or slurry ice up to combustion temperatures.

Topics under study can be classified according to the following categories:

• Physics of heat transport phenomena

The goal is to understand, characterize, predict or control heat transfer phenomena and their coupling to other phenomena, at different spatial, time or temperatures scales. This encompasses in particular topics involving heat convection, heat conduction, thermal radiation or phase-change heat transfer.

• Heat transfer in complex systems and devices, and their energy efficiency

Topics investigated deal in particular with building optimal energy design and devices such as refrigerators, thermal engines and combustion chambers, solar-related systems.

• Processes driven by heat transfer

The impacts of heat transfer are assessed on various types of processes, in particular for polymer shaping and industry-related application.

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