Hans Tropper


Hans Tropper was an Austrian Professor of Electrical Engineering with research interest in breakdown strength of liquid insulation. The ‘Hans Tropper Memorial Lecture’ is held in his honour to open each IEEE International Conference on Dielectric Liquids. He also briefly worked for Elin Aktiengesellschaft fur Elektrische Industrie.

Early life

Hans Tropper was born in 1905, in Vienna, Austria. He was an only child born to parents Johann and Josefa. As well as having no siblings, he also had no aunts or uncles. Tropper was brought up by his mother for most of his teenage years after his father was killed during WWI while serving as an officer in the Austrian Army.

Personal life

Tropper married Mary, also a doctor, in 1947, becoming a British citizen in the same year. They had two daughters together.

Academic career

Tropper received his PhD in 1939. In 1956, Hans Tropper was appointed as a senior lecturer at Queen Mary College London, reading electrical engineering. His personal research interest was in the dielectric breakdown strength of insulating liquids. In 1969 he was made professor of electrical engineering at the same college. During this time, he oversaw 56 doctorate theses and 7 masters’ dissertation students as either supervisor or advisor, including students at Queen Mary College London as well as many international candidates. Notable students include Brendan Scaife.
Tropper was responsible for the running of the high voltage at Queen Mary College, the first at a UK University.
Tropper published Electric Circuit Theory - An Introduction to Steady State and Transient Theory Based on the Superposition Principle in 1949.

Memorial lecture

Hans Tropper contributed substantially to the field of dielectric materials. In recognition of this, a memorial lecture was held in the second International Conference on Dielectric Liquids after his death, at Pavia, Italy. The ICDL conference is an international conference that focuses on results and practical experience of properties, dielectric phenomena and applications of insulating liquids, bringing together an international audience to share knowledge around this field.
The paper associated to the memorial lecture is typically published as part of the conference proceedings. A full history of Hans Tropper Memorial Lectures is given below.

Year LocationPresenterTitle
1984 Pavia, ItalyT.J. LewisElectronic Processes in Dielectric Liquids Under Incipient Breakdown Stress *
1987 Salford, UKN.J. FéliciBlazing a Fiery Trail with the Hounds
1990 Grenoble, FranceUnknownUnknown
1993 Baden-Dättwil, SwitzerlandP. AttenElectrohydrodynamic Instability and Motion Induces by Space Charge in Insulating Liquids
1996 Roma, ItalyK. YoshinoElectronic Processes in Liquids of Aromatic and Conjugated Structure
1999 Nara, JapanUnknownUnknown
2002 Graz, AustriaJ.K. NelsonMotion at the Liquid-solid Interface - Developing Design Tools from Fundamental Models
2005 Coimbra, PortugalC.W. FabjanFundamental Physics with Noble Liquid Detectors
2008 Poitiers, FranceM. PompiliPartial Discharge Measurements in Dielectric Liquids
2011 Trondheim, NorwayA. DenatConduction and Breakdown in Dielectric Liquids
2014 Bled, SloveniaE. GockenbachLiquids in High Voltage Equipment
2017 Manchester, UKH. OkuboKerr Electro-optic Electric Field Measurement and Electrical Insulation Performance in HVDC Liquid Dielectric Systems
2019 Rome, ItalyJ. YagoobiTransport of Heat and Mass with Electrical Field – from Earth to Space

∗Not published as part of conference proceedings, instead published in IEEE Transactions on Electrical Insulation Vol. EI-20 No.2, April 1985