International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 1569–1571
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

In memoriam

Prof. Dr.-Ing., Dr.-Ing.e.h. Ulrich Grigull (1912–2003)

Ulrich Grigull, Professor emeritus of the TechnischeUniversit€at M€
unchen, one of the founding editors of thisJournal and member of the Honorary Editorial Advisory Board, passed away on October 20.
Nationally and Internationally renowned, he waswell known and esteemed in the Heat Transfer Community. He was a Grandseigneur of Heat Transfer,spiritus rector of many new developments. He has set
standards in all of his numerous activities.
Born on March 12, 1912 in Gallingen in East Prussia,
he lived an eventful life of almost a century; a life withworld wars, post-war uncertainties, new orientations inwork and living. But he also lived a blessed life with a
happy family, ﬁlled with satisfaction, honours and health.
He grew up during the ﬁrst world war in the small
community Gallingen where his father held the positionof the Minister. He went to the Gymnasium inK€
onigsberg and studied Mechanical Engineering (1930–1935) at the Technical University in Danzig. As a
Diplom-Ingenieur he became Assistant to Professor Dr.
Ernst Schmidt who was the director of the EngineLaboratory at the university. In these years, when Heat
Transfer was still a relatively young academic discipline,a group of disciples had gathered in this laboratory
doing inspiring work. Most likely, Ulrich Grigull received the scientiﬁc background, which became hisguiding principle for his future life, in those days.
doi:10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2003.11.004

In 1937, E. Schmidt went to Braunschweig to organize and direct the Institute for Aircraft Engines of theAeronautical Research Establishment. Grigull followed
him to this new institute. Here he constructed a research
apparatus to study natural convection heat transfer near
the thermodynamic critical state. This work showed––
for the ﬁrst time––the large increase of the heat transfer
coeﬃcient in a near critical ﬂuid. It resulted in thedevelopment of a new cooling method for high-temperature gas-turbines. For Grigull it was his ﬁrst scientiﬁc publication, together with E. Schmidt and E.
Eckert. A report, to the German Academy of Aeronautics, based on this publication and proposing thecooling method for gas-turbine blades became classiﬁed(Geheime Kommandosache 1055) and after World War
II was considered so important to be translated into
English (AAF translation no. 527).
He also performed a theoretical work on turbulent
ﬁlm condensation which was of such high quality that––though it was originally not intended for––it was accepted as Ph.D.-Theses by the Technical University
Braunschweig. The title was ‘‘W€
arme€
ubergang bei derKondensation mit turbulenter Wasserhaut’’. Shortlyafterwards he volunteered to join the Navy as chiefengineer on submarines and destroyers. After the war––a very diﬃcult time in Germany––especially when tocare for the living of a family: his wife Lydia and his1570

In memoriam / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 1569–1571

daughter Barbara, born 1942, his other daughter Andrea
was born 1953. Grigull worked as a consultant to various chemical and textile industries and became directorof a renowned ﬁrm which produced insulating materials.
In 1953, he changed to Farbenfabriken Bayer A.G. inLeverkusen.
During the years there, he was able to completely
revise and extend the book by Gr€
ober/Erk (1933)‘‘Grundgesetze der W€arme€ubertragung’’ (The BasicLaws of Thermodynamics) which had ﬁrst appeared in1921. It was the only book in Heat Transfer written inGerman in those days and it became a standard in theGerman literature of thermal engineering. It also received high appreciation in the international literatureby being translated into ﬁve foreign languages––English,Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish.
Grigull always kept his ties to heat transfer. In hisvarious occupations in the post-war time he becamefamiliar with a variety of heat transfer problems and hemade his contributions to their solution. Seventeen
papers which he published in the years 1950–1959 give
evidence; e.g. ‘‘How to determine the most economical
thickness for insulation’’, ‘‘Surface temperature and heatloss’’, ‘‘Heat and Mass transfer with and withoutchemical wall reaction’’ (titles translated!). He gave lectures at the Technical University Braunschweig on‘‘Heat Transfer’’ ﬁlling a gap since E. Schmidt had left
Braunschweig for Munich.
Together with A.J. Ede, C. Gazley, J.P. Hartnett,A.V. Luikov and D.B. Spalding he founded the ‘‘International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer’’ in 1960
with Robert Maxwell being the Publisher with hisPergamon Press. This journal made apparent theworldwide interest in the ﬁeld of heat and mass transfer.
In 1961, Ulrich Grigull became the successor to Ernst
Schmidt as Professor and Director of the Institutefor Thermodynamics at the Technische HochschuleM€
unchen. With his wide-spanned ideas, which he now
activated in numerous theses, he was a deserving successor to this Chair which had been held before by Carlvon Linde, Moritz Schr€oter and Wilhelm Nusselt.
Professor Grigull continued in the tradition of thechair and added further to its high scientiﬁc standing.
Optical methods using shadow-graph and Schlierenmethods as well as interferometry with a Mach-Zehnderinterferometer were further developed. His scientiﬁcaccomplishments are documented in more than 120
papers and 40 books and book contributions. He
supervised more than 40 scientists with their doctoral
theses from almost every aspect of heat transfer. As ateacher he led generations of students to an understanding of Thermodynamics and Heat––and Masstransfer. Ulrich Grigull, with all his profound experiencein the ﬁeld was an engaged advocate of heat transfer asan original discipline in education and research.

‘‘The science of Heat and Mass Transfer is of great
importance in many technical ﬁelds. . .’’ (translated) hewrote in the foreward to the ﬁrst issue of the German Journal ‘‘W€
arme- und Stoﬀ€
ubertragung’’. This hefounded in 1968 together with E. Eckert and P. Grassmann. Further in this forward he stated ‘‘. . . this might
have been the reason why problems in Heat and MassTransfer are now studied in most technical countries
highly intensively and with considerable expense . . .’’.
Grigull strongly advocated an International HeatTransfer. This became manifested when in Chicago in1966, at the Third Conference a real internationalisation
was discussed. The future ‘‘International Heat Transfer
Conferences’’ should be held every four years and acommittee ‘‘International Assembly for Heat Transfer
Conferences’’ should be installed. This Assembly is incharge of selecting countries to organize Conferences; its
members organize the selection of papers of theirs andadjoined countries. The Fourth Conference in Paris(1970) was organized jointly by France and Germanywith presidents E.A. Brun (Paris) and U. Grigull(M€unchen). The Assembly provided a worldwide organisation which rendered a startling result: more than 700
manuscripts from all over the world were oﬀered for thisConference. The three preceding conferences which had
been primarily British and American had around 150
papers.
Grigull quite often experienced the responsibilities ofa President: he was president of two International Heat
Transfer Conferences, of the International Assembly, ofthe International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer in
Yugoslavia, of the International Association for theProperties of Water and Steam; he was elected Rektorand President of the Technische Universit€
at M€
unchen(former Hochschule). This oﬃce he held for eight years
until his retirement in 1981.
He retired from oﬃce but never from activities. Now
he was able to devote his time to subjects which he always was inclined to: history and especially that oftechnical accomplishments. His publications take usback into the world of the early 18th century when heat,
enthalpy and temperature were all about the same which
Isaac Newton called ‘‘Calor’’. Ulrich Grigull visited
libraries in Amsterdam, Florence and London in orderto go back to the roots. One of these roots was Isaac
Newton. He had suggested a temperature scale alreadyin 1692. Grigull found out that––considering facts that
could not be known to Newton 300 years ago––his thenmeasurement––results agree with nowadays results. Or
that Newton’s enthalpy-balance could well be written asa heat-transfer law in nowadays0 sense. Thus this balance is the oldest quantitative evidence of a heat-transferproblem. It might be interesting to know that Grigull
used the original writings of Newton which were not inEnglish but in Latin. Another early pioneer of temperatures and its measurement caught Grigull’s interest:In memoriam / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 1569–1571

Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit. Grigull studied his works
and published a paper to Fahrenheit’s 300th birthday,‘‘Fahrenheit, a Pioneer of exact thermometry’’.
As a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences
he headed the Commission for the Publication of thepapers of Johannes Kepler and he published a booklet‘‘60 years Kepler-Commission’’ (translated).
After three editions of his book, Grigull felt that theimmensely increased knowledge in Heat Transfer could
not be published in a single volume again, and decided
for a Book Series on Heat and Mass Transfer. So farnine volumes have appeared on subjects as: Thermophysical Properties, Radiation (three volumes), Boilingand Condensation, Convection, Conduction, Mass
Transfer and Optical Measurements.
Many honours and awards have been bestowed
upon Ulrich Grigull. To name just a few: he is Honorary Doctor of the University Stuttgart; he was presented with the Max Jakob Memorial Award. The State

1571of Bavaria honoured him with the ‘‘Order of Maximilian’’, the highest award for scientiﬁc merits in Bavaria.
Professor Grigull will be remembered as a great man
and a true pioneer of the science of heat transfer. Weall will miss him.
E. HahneUniversitat Stuttgart
Institut fur Thermodynamik und Warmetecknik
Paﬀenwaldring 6
Stuttgart 70550, Germany
Tel.: +49-711-685-3538; fax: +49-711-685-35033
E-mail address: hahne@itw.uni-stuttgrat.deJ.P. Hartnett
F. Mayinger
W. Minkowycz
J. Straub