Franz Grashof

Born in Duesseldorf, Germany, as the son of Elisabeth Brüggemann and Karl Grashof, who taught at an upper
secondary school, Franz Grashof visited the elementary and lower secondary school in Duesseldorf and the
industrial school in Hagen.
Motivated by the rise of steamers and the railway, he started working at a locksmith’s shop. In October 1844
Franz Grashof quit school to start studying metallurgy at the royal vocational institute in Berlin, where he
studied mathematics, physics and mechanical engineering. From 1847 to 1848 he interrupted his studies to
voluntarily serve for the military.To serve his country he aimed at becoming a marine officer. Therefore, he had
to start working as a simple sailor on a sailing ship called “Esmeralda”. Until December 1851 he sailed around
the world and realized that practical work was not his main professional skill. On his journey he decided to
teach at a technical school. That’s why he carried on studying in Berlin in 1852. In 1854 Franz Grashof
concluded his studies and became a teacher in mathematics and mechanics at the royal vocational institute
in Berlin. In 1855 he got the leadership of the royal gauging office in Berlin. In the following year he was
involved in the establishment of the Association of German Engineers and became its managing director until
1890 .From 1863 to 1891 he was a professor of General and Theoretical Machine Science at the Technische
Hochschule Karlsruhe. He developed some early steam-flow formulas but made significant contribution to free
convection
On October 26, 1893 he died after his second stroke.
The Grashof number (Gr) is a dimensionless number in fluid dynamics and heat transfer which
approximates the ratio of the buoyancy to viscous force acting on a fluid. It frequently arises in the
study of situations involving natural convection and is analogous to the Reynolds number. It's
believed to be named after Franz Grashof. Though this grouping of terms had already been in use,
it wasn't named until around 1921, 28 years after Franz Grashof's death. It's not very clear why the
grouping was named after him
Grashof number is a dimensionless number similar to Reynolds number. While Reynolds number is the
ratio between inertial forces to viscous forces thus making Reynolds number useful for predicting the
nature of the flow ( Laminar, Turbulent or transition) thus making some approximations valid by
knowing nature of the flow.
The same goes for Grashof's number, however, it is defined as the ratio between the buoyancy forces and
viscous forces in fluids. Why this is important? Because the buoyancy forces is what drives natural
convection as the hot fluid goes up and the cold goes down, and the viscous force is what tries to stop it.
By calculating the ratio you can predict if the natural convection is dominant or the forced conviction
and then you can use simpler approaches to calculate the heat transfer.
Physical Significance of Grashof Number
The most common use of Grashoff number is to check the fluid flow behavior around a new prototype to ensure its
use in the practical field. Most of the times scaled models of the desired prototype is tested under similar
environment. Grashof numbers comes handy when buoyancy and viscous forces are very important. It represents
how dominant is the buoyancy force which is responsible for the convection comparing to the viscous forces.
Grashof number is very similar to the Reynold's number . Only difference is that Reynolds Number is used for
forced convection cases where Grashoff number is used for natural convection phenomenon.
Nusselt Number is a function of Prandtl Number and Grashof Number.
Reynolds umber Categorizes the flow as laminar. transition and turbulent flow in forced convection cases. Grashoff
number does the same in natural convection.
Grashof number is a function of buoyancy force, inertia force and viscous force.