August Wöhler

Derailment of the Amstetten on October 19, 1875

Memorial plaque on the premises of the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing , Unter den Eichen 87, in Berlin-Lichterfelde

August Wöhler (* 22. June 1819 in Soltau , † 21st March 1914 in Hannover ) was a German railroad - engineer . He researched the materials steel and iron . The Wöhler curve named after him represents the relationship between the number of cycles at break and the deflection stress for a material under vibration load.

Life

Wöhler was born in 1819 as the son of a teacher. In 1835 he began studying at the higher trade school in Hanover . Due to his mathematical talent, he received a scholarship of 100 thalers a year. After finishing his studies he had to work full time in a workshop. With good references and a travel grant of another 100 thalers, he moved to Berlin . From 1841 to 1843 he worked for August Borsig and then for four years at the newly founded Royal Hanover State Railway . In 1847 he became chief engineer at the Lower Silesian-Märkische Railway in Frankfurt (Oder) . In 1852 this was acquired by the State of Prussia and Wöhler was made Kgl. Prussia. Chief Engineer appointed. He remained in the civil service until 1869 and then became director of the Norddeutsche Aktiengesellschaft für Eisenbahnbedarf in Berlin. In 1874 he went to Strasbourg , where he became railway director and member of the general management of the Reichseisenbahnen .

In addition to his title as Dr.-Ing. August Wöhler adorned the designation as a Privy Councilor .

In 1889 Wöhler retired.

Services

Before Wöhler researched the relationship between the number of breaking load cycles and the deflection stress, serious accidents repeatedly occurred in practical operation (e.g. in railway operations) as a result of broken axles, although machine components were correctly designed in terms of classic, static strength .

On October 19, 1875, the Amstetten locomotive derailed on the Salzburg – Linz route and then came to an upright standstill. The cause of the derailment was a broken wheel tire , which had not withstood the constant circulation load. The fact that the alternately stressed material has a lower load capacity than the statically loaded material was not yet known at the time. These connections were only discovered by August Wöhler.

The Wöhler test , an attempt to determine the fatigue strength , was named after him.

Honors

On May 2, 1883, he was awarded the “Silver” medal for services to the construction industry .
In 1896 he was awarded the Grashof Memorial Medal from the Association of German Engineers .
In 1901 he was one of the first to the TH Berlin the honorary doctorate given.
Wöhler was an honorary member of the Hanover Architects and Engineers Association
In honor of Wöhler, a street and the secondary school were named after him in his hometown Soltau .
Since 2001 the German Association for Material Research and Testing e. V. , Berlin the "August-Wöhler-Medal" for outstanding achievements in the field of material mechanics, fatigue strength and fracture mechanics.

literature

German Biographical Encyclopedia , Volume 10 (1999), p. 555
Eckhart Röders: August Wöhler . In: Soltauer Schriften, Binneboom: series of publications by the Freudenthal Society and the Soltau Heimatbund , Soltau: Mundschenk, 2002, ISSN 1861-8871
Albert Hölscher: The German Museum in Munich reports on Dr. hc August Wöhler . In: The Lower Saxony . Sunday supplement of the Böhme-Zeitung (Soltau), Soltau 1972
Karl-Eugen Kurrer : The History of the Theory of Structures. Searching for Equilibrium , Ernst & Sohn 2018, p. 1082f (biography), ISBN 978-3-433-03229-9 .
Der Wissenschaft W. (2004) August Wöhler (1819–1914). In: Knobloch E. (eds) “The shoulders on which we stand” - pioneers of science. Springer-Verlag , Berlin, Heidelberg, ISBN 978-3-642-18916-6

Web links

Commons : August Wöhler - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Biography in the commemorative publication 125 years of TU Berlin

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d o. V .: Wöhler, Adolf in the database of Niedersächsische Personen (new entry required) of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library - Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek [undated], last accessed on April 8, 2019
↑ ^a ^b Journal of Architecture and Engineering , Vol. 61 (1915), p. 109; limited preview in Google Book search
^ Ludwig Ritter von Stockert : Railway accidents. A contribution to railway operations theory. , Vol. 1. Leipzig 1913, p. 223, no. 127.
^ Honor , Im Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung , No. 19, May 12, 1883, p. 167, accessed on December 21, 2012

personal data
SURNAME	Wöhler, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German engineer
DATE OF BIRTH	June 22, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH	Soltau
DATE OF DEATH	March 21, 1914
Place of death	Hanover

[GWBL-1] . V .: Wöhler, Adolf in the database of Niedersächsische Personen (new entry required) of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library - Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek [undated], last accessed on April 8, 2019

[ZdAIVH-2] Journal of Architecture and Engineering , Vol. 61 (1915), p. 109; limited preview in Google Book search

[3] Ludwig Ritter von Stockert : Railway accidents. A contribution to railway operations theory. , Vol. 1. Leipzig 1913, p. 223, no. 127.

[4] Honor , Im Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung , No. 19, May 12, 1883, p. 167, accessed on December 21, 2012