Ekkehard Ramm

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Portrait of Ekkehard Ramm

Ekkehard Ramm (born October 3, 1940 in Osnabrück ) is a German civil engineer specializing in structural engineering with a focus on structural mechanics. He is a emeritus professor in the field of structural engineering and dynamics at the University of Stuttgart .

Professional background

Ekkehard Ramm studied from 1960 to 1966 at the Technical Universities of Darmstadt and Stuttgart; In 1964 he was accepted into the German National Academic Foundation . After graduating, he was a research assistant at the Institute for Structural Analysis at the University of Stuttgart. In 1972 he received his doctorate with a contribution to the practical calculation of thin spherical shells with non-rotationally symmetrical boundaries (main reporter Friedrich Wilhelm Bornscheuer ). From 1972 to 1975 he received a habilitation grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG) . During this time as a postdoc , he was at the University of California, Berkeley in 1972/73 and then at the University of Stuttgart . He completed his habilitation in 1976 with the title Geometrically Nonlinear Elastostatics and Finite Elements and received the Venia Legendi for the subject of structural engineering. In 1976 he was appointed Scientific Councilor and Professor (C3). In 1983 he succeeded Friedrich Wilhelm Bornscheuer as Professor (C4) and headed the Institute for Structural Analysis at the University of Stuttgart in teaching and research until his retirement in 2006.

In addition to this institute management, he was acting head of the Institute for Lightweight Structures (IL) from 1991 to 1994 after Professor Frei Otto left and was responsible for its continuation. From 1995 to 2000 he was a member of the administrative board and from 2002 to 2003 a member of the university council of the University of Stuttgart. In the Senate and Approval Committee for the Collaborative Research Centers (SFB) of the German Research Foundation, he represented the engineering sector as an elected member from 1994 to 1999.

Ekkehard Ramm was the initiator in 1980 and headed the DAAD exchange program with the University of Calgary until 2006 ; In 2020 this program will celebrate its 40th anniversary. In 1981/82 he was Vice Dean and 1987/88 Dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Surveying at the University of Stuttgart. In 2000 he proposed the Computational Mechanics of Materials and Structures (COMMAS) master’s program and headed it as deputy speaker until his retirement. 2000–2008 he was President of the German Association for Computational Mechanics (GACM) and Vice President (2005–2013) and President (2013–2017) of the European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences (ECCOMAS).

In 1988 Ekkehard Ramm founded the engineering office Delta-X in Stuttgart together with Albrecht Burmeister, to which he belonged until 2012. From 1996 to 2008 he was a test engineer for structural engineering .

His successor as head of the Institute for Structural Analysis and Dynamics has been his former doctoral student Manfred Bischoff since 2006 .

research

Ekkehard Ramm deals with the entire spectrum of the mechanics of structures (structural mechanics), in particular with the statics and dynamics of thin-walled structures such as plate, membrane and shell structures. The focus is on mechanical modeling and its numerical simulation, mainly in the development of linear and non-linear finite element methods and their mathematical validation (error estimation, adaptivity). Formulations for deformations of any size as well as stability and failure analyzes are developed, also taking multi-scale modeling into account. This includes material models for the non-linear behavior of different materials (metals, concrete and reinforced concrete, fiber-reinforced composite materials, glass, geomaterials). Particle methods are also used (discrete element methods). Algorithms for contact mechanics, the investigation of the flow of fluids (turbulence, Navier-Stokes equation) and the flow-structure interaction should also be mentioned. The development of new methods for the shape, topology and material optimization of structures, e.g. B. for the form finding of structures and the design of new materials are a focus of his research.

In addition to these core areas of structural mechanics, Ekkehard Ramm also deals with the history of structures and their mechanical modeling. The history of the Golden Gate Bridge from its beginnings to the present day became a central theme. The institute also produced the first biography on Karl Culmann (dissertation by Bertram Maurer ) and a thesis on the history of vault theory (dissertation by Martin Trautz). He also supported Karl-Eugen Kurrer's book on the history of structural engineering. With his IASS lecture on Topology Optimization at a conference in Atlanta in 1995, Ramm encouraged William F. Baker from the Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) office in Chicago to take up research on the optimization and form-finding of structures.

Participation in research associations (selection):

  • DFG Collaborative Research Center “Natural Constructions - Lightweight Construction in Architecture and Nature” (SFB 230) 1984–1995
  • DFG Collaborative Research Center “Multiple Field Problems in Continuum Mechanics” (SFB 404) 1995–2006
  • DFG Research Unit 326 “Modeling Cohesive Friction Materials as a Continuum or as a Discontinuum” 1998–2005
  • DFG-TNO German-Dutch research group “Multiscale Methods in Computational Mechanics” (FOG 509) 2003–2009; as a speaker

Ekkehard Ramm supervised 57 PhD students of his own; 20 of these are professors and 3 are honorary professors. He was co-reporter for 91 doctorates and post-doctoral degrees.

Honors

  • 1991 Tsuboi Prize of the International Association of Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS)
  • 1995 Eric Reissner Medal from Intern. Congress of Engineering Sciences
  • 2002 Computational Mechanics Award and Fellow of the International Association for Computational Mechanics (IACM)
  • 2002 Pioneers Award from the Space Structure Research Center at the University of Surrey
  • 2004 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Calgary : Doctor of Law hc
  • 2004 Honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Munich : Dr.-Ing. E. h.
  • 2008 Congress Medal (Gauss-Newton-Medal) of the International Association for Computational Mechanics (IACM)
  • 2008 Honorary President of the German Association for Computational Mechanics (GACM)
  • 2008 Torroja Medal from the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures
  • 2015 OC Zienkiewicz Medal of the Polish Association for Computational Mechanics (PACM)
  • 2018 Leonhard Euler Medal of the European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences (ECCOMAS)

Memberships in scientific academies

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life and career data Kürschner, Deutscher Schehrtenkalender 2009.
  2. ↑ Ekkehard Ramm. Contribution to the practical calculation of thin spherical shells with non-rotationally symmetrical boundaries according to the linear bending theory. PhD thesis. 1972 report, Institute for Structural Analysis, University of Stuttgart. 1972. https://www.ibb.uni-stuttgart.de/dokumente/publications/pdf/1972/ramm-1972.pdf
  3. ↑ Ekkehard Ramm. Geometrically non-linear elastostatics and finite elements. Habilitation thesis. Report No. 76-2, Institute for Structural Analysis, University of Stuttgart. 1976. https://www.ibb.uni-stuttgart.de/dokumente/publications/pdf/1976/ramm-1976.pdf
personal data
SURNAME Ramm, Ekkehard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German civil engineer
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Osnabrück