Inf. J. Hear Mass Transfer.
Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 251-252, 1998
0 1997 Published by Elsetier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
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Professor Dr.-lng. Dr.4ng.e.h. Ulrich Grigull
on his 85th birthday

Ulrich Grigull, Professor emeritus, Technische Hochschule, Miinchen, 85 on 12 March 1997, is one of thegrand old scientists of heat transfer. For more than
60 years he has devoted himself to this field and madeit a scientific discipline by both his scientific work andhis international activities. His curriculum is a historyof heat transfer. ,4fter he had finished his studies of
Mechanical Engineering in 1935, he joined Ernst
Schmidt at the chair of Technische Warmelehre of theTechnische Hochschule Danzig. Danzig and Dresden
were the hubs of heat transfer and thermodynamics,
at that time in Germany, with Ernst Schmidt andRichard Mollier being the holders of chairs at theseuniversities.
The Danzig laboratory enjoyed renown for heattransfer and also attracted students and young scientists from countries other than Germany. Ernst Eckert
came from Prague to Danzig. There was no specialisation in a certain field of heat transfer in those days
and Ulrich Grigull, the young assistant to Schmidt,
had to tackle a great many problems. This earlyexperience formed his later career. His interests havealways been wide-spanned : heat conduction, naturalconvection,condensation,
radiationand manydetailed problems. He never specialised in a single
field, but he became a specialist in many fields. For
non-steady heat conduction, a graphical differential
method was developed in Danzig, which allowed
quick solutions of these complicated problems whencomputers were not yet known. Even nowadays thismethod will beat a computer when a ready-made programme is not available. The sensorless Schatten- andSchlieren-methods were developed, dropwise condensation was investigated, properties of steam andradiation properties of surfaces were measured.
Ulrich Grigull became one of the hrst co-workers
of Ernst Schmidt at the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt
ftir Luftfahrt in Braunschweig, where Schmidt had
moved in 1937. Grigull obtained his Doctor of Engineering degree at the Technische Hochschule Braunschweig with a theoretical thesis on turbulent filmcondensation. Here, he also published his first paper,
together with E. Schmidt and E. Eckert, ‘Wlrmetransport durch Fltissigkeiten in der Nlhe ihres
kritischen Zustandes’ (Heat transport by fluids near
their critical state). This paper formed the basis of the‘Schmidt cooling’ of gas-turbine blades, proposed in1942, in a secret report (geheime Kommandosache,Schreiben 1055) to the German Academy of Aeronautics.
After World War II, this paper was considered so
important that it was translated into English in an
AAF translation no. 527, Air Material Command,
Wright Field, Dayton. Nowadays these ideas find an
application in wickless heat pipes. During the war,
Grigull served as an officer and chief engineer in theKriegsmarine on submarines and destroyers. After thewar, which was a very difficult time in Germany as it251

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E. HAHNE and J. P. HARTNETT

was all over Europe, Grigull worked as a consultant
to a chemical and textile firm and became a director
in a renowned firm which produces insulating
materials. In 1953, he changed to the Farbenfabriken
Bayer, A.G. in Leverkusen. During the years there,
he was able to completely revise and extend the book byGriiber/Erk ‘Grundgesetze der Warmetibertragung’from 1933. This new book became the principal
work in German literature of heat transfer and it
was translated into English, Japanese, Russian,Spanish and Turkish.
In 1961, Ulrich Grigull became the successor toErnst Schmidt as Professor and Director of the Institute for Thermodynamics at the Technische Hochschule, Munchen. With his wide-spanned ideas,
which he now activated in numerous theses, he was adeserving successor to this Chair, which had been
held before by Carl von Linde, Moritz Schriiter andWilhelm Nusselt. Until his retirement in 1980, Ulrich
Grigull supervised more than 40 scientists with theirdoctoral theses, he contributed to almost every aspectof heat transfer with about 120 scientific papers andmore than 40 books and book contributions.
In the early 60s Grigull founded, together withcolleagues from France, Great Britain and the U.S.A.,
the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer.
Some years later, he realized that a German journal
was missing in the field and the founded the journal
W&me- und Stofftibertragung together with E. R. G.
Eckert and P. Grassmann.
Science and university are his life. In 1972, he waselected Rektor and, in 1976, the President of the now
Technische Universitat, Mtinchen. He held this office
until his retirement. He retired from office, but neverfrom activities. He was the President of the International Assembly for Heat Transfer Conferences,President of the International Center for Heat andMass Transfer, President of the International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam and an

active member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences,where he heads the commission for the publication ofthe papers of Johannes Kepler.
Just recently, in 1996, he published a booklet, ‘60
Jahre Kepler-Kommission’ (60 years Kepler-Commission). This gives information on the unique effortof the Bavarian Academy of Sciences to publish all
the extensive works of Johannes Kepler, the mathematician and astronomer.
Now, he was also able to enjoy his long postponedinterests for technical history and he turned to theroots of thermodynamics. His paper, ‘Fahrenheit, aPioneer of Exact Thermometry’, takes us into theworld 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 and compiled adetailed mosaic of Daniel, Gabriel Fahrenheit’s life
and that of his contemporaries.
In 1979, he published a monography on ‘Newton’s
Cooling Law. Remarks to a paper by Isaac Newton
from 1701’. Presently Grigull has finished a biographyof Wilhelm Nusselt and he is planning one on Ernst
Schmidt.
Many honours and awards have been bestowed
upon Ulrich Grigull. To name just a few : he is an
Honorary Doctor of the University Stuttgart; theAmerican Society of Mechanical Engineers and theAmerican Institute of Chemical Engineers presented
him with the Max Jakob Memorial Award and theState of Bavaria with the ‘Order of Maximilian’, thehighest award for scientific merits in Bavaria.
All the colleagues and friends, the Editors of thisjournal and the world-wide community of heat transfer submit their best wishes to Professor Dr. Dr. e.h.
Ulrich Grigull and his marvellous wife Lydia.
ERICH HAHNEJAMES P. HARTNETT