A dimensionless number, St, used for forced convection heat transfer and relates the rate of heat transfer to the thermal capacity of a fluid:
where h is the surface heat transfer coefficient, ρ is the density, v the velocity, and cp is the specific heat capacity. Nu is the Nusselt number, Re is the Reynolds number, and Pr is the Prandtl number. It is named after British scientist Thomas Edward Stanton (1865–1931).