Abstract: The recent developments in the study on heat transfer enhancement are reviewed and summarized. These include：① The field synergy principle has been extended from parabolic flow to elliptic flow which is more often than not encountered in engineering. ② Validation of the field synergy principle has been performed via numerical and experimental methods for a number of cases, especially a specific test rig has been designed to demonstrate that when the flow direction is normal to the fluid temperature gradient, the flow and its velocity has nothing to do with the heat transfer in that direction. ③ It has been demonstrated via numerical examples that the field synergy principle can unify all the existing three explanations of convective heat transfer, hence it is the most fundamental mechanism for enhancing single-phase convective heat transfer. ④ Two examples of enhanced heat transfer configurations are presented which are deigned by applying the filed synergy principle and are characterized by the fact that the enhanced ratio of heat transfer is larger than the ratio of friction factor increase compared with the reference configuration. Finally some research needs in the filed synergy principle are proposed.

Key words: Experimental study, Field synergy principle, Heat transfer enhancement, Numerical simulation, Transport process