100 Years Department of Papermaking

Other projects for which extensive test setups or measuring equipment have been installed and which have always been part of one or more promotional projects are also included:

• Automatic test lanes for the evaluation of paper machine longitudinal and lateral
• Cross profiles according to surface mass, thickness, colour and gloss, including an office large calculator for data analysis (Fig. 8)
• Paper drying equipment for determining the specific characteristics of paper drying
• Development and construction of novel calender concepts for the optimization of the calendering process
• Construction of a plant for the production of corrugated board strips to improve the runnability of corrugated board papers and the bonding of corrugated board
• Introduction of image analysis systems and development of software programs for the analysis of paper structures (screen and felt marking, formation, pinholes) and printability (missing dots, mottling).

During his tenure in office, Prof. Göttsching has fostered a significant development in this field by dealing with the subject of waste paper. The increasing importance as a raw material for paper production was foreseeable at the time of his assumption of office, but certainly not the increase with which waste paper recycling increased over the next three decades. The stock preparation pilot plant was expanded by a pressure screen and fractionator for stock cleaning and fibre fractionation as well as the installation of a self-built flotation cell. In connection with various pulpers, flotation and washing cells as well as bleaching facilities on a laboratory scale, numerous diploma theses and several doctorates in the field of waste paper preparation could be carried out. Third-party funded research projects in the field of waste paper were initially carried out alone, later increasingly in national (e.g. BMFT project to increase waste paper recycling or BMBF project ÖKOPAP 2000) and international (e.g. EU projects DIP Bleaching and Enzymatic Deinking) integrated systems. In addition, studies and forecasts were prepared for the Association of German Paper Mills or the EU Commission on the development of the use of waste paper or on the still available waste paper potential. Prof. Göttsching took up the challenge of international competition and international cooperation in this field and earned himself the reputation of the “Recovered Paper Pope from Darmstadt”.

Prof. Göttsching's cosmopolitan nature was the basis for maintaining contacts with many colleagues at an international level – provided that there is a paper institute or at least a paper industry there. It was he who, after the Second World War, established intensive relations with Eastern Europe, which in any case maintained good contacts with Finland and established new ones with South, Central and North America, South Africa, Japan and Australia. He was not always able to cope with his busy travel activities on his own, so that his esteemed colleagues were often allowed to travel overseas on behalf of the Institute, which the author of these lines also enjoyed. Also unforgettable are the countless excursions with students and staff, which Prof. Göttsching conducted regularly once a year in Germany or Europe. In principle, excursions are a further training measure for each participant and broaden the horizon, whereby for students and employees the excursions to Finland have always been of particular interest. The highlights of all excursions, at least for those who were allowed to take part, were certainly two overseas trips. In 1984, a group of 16 employees and selected students travelled to Kenya and South Africa to visit the pulp and paper industry and the sister institute in Stellenbosch. Two years later, five institute staff travelled to China to visit paper mills and hold seminars in various papermaking centres. Both the technical and cultural impressions made both trips an unforgettable experience.

When enumerating the research work carried out, it is important not to forget the projects that dealt with paper-physical topics using more or less conventional testing techniques, for example to understand the fracture mechanics of paper or the processes involved in roll winding. The institute has three of these and the paper testing laboratories are located there. During Prof. Göttsching's term of office, they were successively modernised and financed by the TH Darmstadt. For the execution of the experimental work, however, the most modern testing equipment is also necessary, which in the past could often be purchased in connection with research projects, but in the last 10-15 years it has become increasingly rare to find such financing.

More restrictive research policies and increasing requirements in the awarding of research contracts are making it increasingly difficult to acquire modern paper testing equipment with public funds, especially since the acquisition of a modern piece of equipment today costs more than 100,000 euros. Therefore the institute management, scientific staff and students are very thankful for the commitment of the industry with the KORA-funding, which made it possible to acquire new equipment and to carry out necessary replacement purchases of equipment, but also to carry out urgently needed renovation measures, for which no more funds could be found in the budget of the Technical University of Darmstadt, through grants of the Association of German Paper Factories (VDP) and the Association of the Employers' Associations of the German Paper Industry (VAP). Basically a circle closes here, since before approximately 100 years the baby – the field paper engineering – was dependent also on the financial support on the part of the industry, is it by federations or individual companies. Without this support, a successful start would not have been possible. Today the university institutes are again in a situation in which they can often only keep up with the European level of scientific work if they have the appropriate equipment. At present, however, they cannot and will not finance either the universities or the public funding agencies. It can therefore be foreseen that in the medium term industry will be increasingly called upon to continue supporting the institutions close to it so that they can hold their own in international competition. The specialist area of paper production, however, does not wish to complain about this at all, but rather continues to hope for active “sponsoring” by industry and associations.

The 75th anniversary of the Institute was celebrated in October 1980 in conjunction with the APV Annual Meeting. A lecture event by employees of the Institute on current research projects in the lecture hall of the Electrical Engineering Department formed the technical part of the event. The welcoming evening took place in the Jagdschloß Kranichstein. The ceremony was held in the Orangery with around 300 guests, including 18 foreign university and research institutes (Fig. 9). The speech with the title “Papiergedanken” was held by Prof. Dr. phil. Dr. h.c. Dolf STERNBERGER, political scientist and former editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The background music was provided by the Bad Soden Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Robert GÖTTSCHING, the father of Prof. Göttsching [22].

The extraordinarily large demand for paper engineers in the first 25 years of the existence of the subject area is documented by the high average number of students between SS 1905 and WS 1929/30, which is 51 semesters on average from today's point of view, whereby it must be taken into account that it even includes ten war semesters between 1914 and 1919. If these semesters are disregarded, the average number of student enrolments for the first 25 years of the subject area is 66.16 In the following nine years up to the beginning of World War II, student enrolment remained at a high level of 35 students on average, while the number of student enrolments fell to four students on average from the winter semester of 1939/40 to 1944/45.13 In the post-war period, student enrolment recovered rapidly, returning to an average of 30 by the winter semester of 1954/55. Excluding the war semesters of the 1st and 2nd World Wars, the average number of semester students between the summer semesters of 1905 and 1954/55 is 31. Assuming an average study period of 2.5 years in the main diploma, the average number of paper engineering students per year is 12.

From 1931, i.e. since the beginning of Prof. Brecht's term in office, the statistics can also be conducted somewhat differently, namely on the basis of the number of diploma theses carried out in the subject area per year. Fig. 10 shows the annual diploma theses between 1931 and 2002, the number of which is between 0 and 30. In the 40-year term of Prof. Brecht, an average of 7.2 diploma theses were written per year, in the 31-year term of Prof. Göttsching 8.1 diploma theses per year. If the time of the Second World War and the post-war period (1939 – 1948) are not taken into account, as the work almost came to a standstill, an average of 8.8 diploma theses per year is calculated for Prof. Brecht's term of office. On average, between 1931 and 2002 an average of 7.6 diploma students per year wrote their diploma theses. Since only very few diploma theses were written which were not carried out in connection with a degree as paper engineer, a long-term average of 7.5 paper engineer graduates per year can be assumed.

[22] N.N.: 75 Jahre Institut für Papierfabrikation. WfP 108(1980) Nr. 23/24, S. 967-971