International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 152 (2020) 119486

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/hmt

In Memoriam

In Memoriam - Graham de Vahl Davis

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing ofEmeritus Professor Graham de Vahl Davis on 24th December 2019.
Graham was a passionate man with great intellect and wit. He had
a great many interests ranging from his research in computational
ﬂuid dynamics (CFD) and heat transfer to communal engagement
and leadership, family, arts, culture and travel. He never missedanswering a single email and always gave prompt and full supportand guidance to his colleagues and friends. His rich voice madea strong impression in formal meetings and discussions. Graham
had a presence that we will never forget.
Graham was born on the 11th of May 1931 in Sydney. He
began his studies at Cranbrook, but afterwards his parents moved
him to Scots College, where he spent his entire 13 years. Afterhigh school, Graham went straight to Sydney University, where
he received his Honours degree in Engineering in 1952. Following
his graduation, Graham moved to Melbourne for his ﬁrst job with
Caltex Oil, a year later winning a PhD scholarship to Cambridge.
After he completed his doctorate in mechanical engineering at theage of 24, he was employed by the Australian Atomic Energy Commission and sent to the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Research
Establishment at Harwell, near Oxford, to work as a computational
ﬂuid thermodynamics engineer. In 1960, he joined the Schoolof Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University ofNew South Wales, rising up the ranks to full professor, and thenEmeritus Professor at UNSW. At UNSW, he taught ﬂuid dynamics,
thermodynamics, heat transfer and especially CFD/HT for all ofthat time. He was highly regarded as an inspirational lecturer andenthusiastic, dedicated and respected supervisor to his many PhD
students. He also contributed strongly to the administration of theSchool in many roles, serving one term as its Head.
From the mid-1960s, computational ﬂuid dynamics and heattransfer were Graham’s principal topics of research. He was apioneer in CFD use in Australia and developed the largest and best
known research group in the country. Graham worked to a large
extent on problems in which the ﬂow is wholly buoyancy-driven,or in cases where buoyancy causes a signiﬁcant modiﬁcation to a
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2020.119486
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forced ﬂow. Such problems occur over a wide spectrum of applications. He was responsible for the development of the widely usedmethod of the false transient for achieving rapid steady solutionsof the CFD/HT equations. He was dedicated to obtaining valid andaccurate numerical solutions. He was a pioneer in the concept ofbench-marking in CFD, and the author of one of the most widely
cited papers on this topic. He was the author of the textbook
Computational Methods in Engineering and Science, as well as theauthor or co-author of more than 150 books, papers and otherrefereed publications on the application of CFD/HT to a wide rangeof problems of theoretical and practical importance. The topics
he studied included combined radiation and natural convection
in cavities; steady and unsteady natural convection in low-Prandtl
number liquids; phase change problems; natural convection in asolidifying liquid, with applications to metal casting and crystal
growth; heat transfer in an annular cavity in the presence of amagneto-hydrodynamically driven ﬂow, with applications to thedesign of lasers. Professor de Vahl Davis was a Member of theOrder of Australia (AM) and was made a Fellow of the Australasian
Fluid Mechanics Society as well as a Fellow of the AustralianAcademy of Technology and Engineering for his life’s work. Hewas awarded the Centenary Medal, Commonwealth of Australiain 2003.
For many years, Professor de Vahl Davis was a major leader
in the International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer. He held
the post of President from 2011 to 2014 as well as Vice-President
and Member of the Executive Committee. He was the Presidentof the Assembly for International Heat Transfer Conferences andthe Conference Co-Chair for IHTC-13. He was the founding Editor of the journal Computational Thermal Sciences. He initiatedthe Computational Heat Transfer Symposium and serving as theCo-Chair of CHT-01, −04, −08 and −12 symposia. An award inhis honour was established at these ongoing scientiﬁc events. Hewas also a Member of the Board of Governors, Technion-Israel
Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel as well as a Member of theEditorial Advisory Boards of half a dozen international journals incomputational ﬂuid dynamics and heat transfer. His contributions
to the heat transfer community were outstanding and he paved
the way for many researchers who looked on him as a mentor inboth research and service.
Graham married Vivianne Ashkanasy in August, 1953 and theyleft shortly thereafter for his scholarship studies at Cambridge.
This was the ﬁrst of their many travels together, and Graham
could always remember and recount fascinating events from manyof his travels in intricate detail. When they returned at the endof November 1957, they had eight-month-old Shelley. Nicola wasborn in December 1960. Her death in March 2010 was a staggering

2In Memoriam / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 152 (2020) 119486

blow for both Graham and Vivianne. After the death of his wife
Vivianne in 2011, in the last seven years of his life, Graham had
his loving companion, Professor Bettina Cass.
On behalf of the editors of this journal and the world-wide
heat transfer community, we offer our condolences to his partner
Bettina Cass, his daughter Dr Shelley (Rochelle) Alexander andgrandchildren Joel Alexander, Rob Alexander, Shoshana Blum, Sruli
Bookey and Gershon Bookey as well as his great-granddaughters
Naomi, Esther and Mimi.
Graham’s love for learning, his wide-ranging interests andhis intellectual and enthusiastic approach have been inspirational to his family, friends and colleagues. His passion, wisdom,commitment, humour, kindness as well as his leadership andguidance in the heat transfer community will be greatly missedby many friends and colleagues around the world, including:
Faruk ArinçAnkara, Turkey
Yildiz Bayazitoglu
Houston, USA
Patrick Bontoux
Marseille, France
Lawrence DoctorsSydney, Australia
Leonid Dombrovsky∗
Joint Institute for High Temperatures, Moscow, Russia
Ivan Egorov
Moscow, Russia
Robin Ford
Sydney, Australia
Richard Goldstein
Minneapolis, USA
Kemal Hanjalic
Delft, Netherlands

Yogesh Jaluria
New Brunswick, USA
Tomek Kowalewski
Warsaw, Poland
Brian Launder
Manchester, UK
Alexander Leontiev
Moscow, Russia
Gordon Mallinson
Auckland, New Zealand
Brian Milton, Graham Morrison
Sydney, Australia
Jacques Padet
Reims, France
Darrell Pepper
Las Vegas, USAJohn Reizes
Sydney, Australia
Bernard Roux
Marseille, FranceTerrence Simon
Minneapolis, USA
Fulvio StellaRome, Italy
Victoria Timchenko∗
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Guan Yeoh
Sydney, Australia
Richard Yuen, Tianshou Zhao
Hong Kong∗ Corresponding authors.

E-mail addresses: ldombr@yandex.ru (L. Dombrovsky),v.timchenko@unsw.edu.au (V. Timchenko)
Available online 17 February 2020