Johanna Weber

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Johanna Weber (1948)

Johanna Weber (born August 8, 1910 in Düsseldorf ; † October 24, 2014 in Ewshot , Hampshire ) was a German-British mathematician who contributed to the development of the aerodynamics of the Concorde aircraft .

British Airways Concorde
Handley Page HP-80 Victor K2

Life

Johanna Weber came from a small family. Her father, a Walloon migrant worker, died on the German side in the first year of the First World War . Weber attended a convent school, began her chemistry and mathematics studies at the University of Cologne and after a year continued her studies at the University of Göttingen , whose scientific staff was decimated by the anti-Semitism of the National Socialists from 1933 . After passing the state examination, she began working in the German armaments industry as a ballistic specialist in a Krupp company .

From 1939 she worked as a mathematician at the Aerodynamic Research Institute Göttingen (AVA) in the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in Göttingen. Since then she has worked with Dietrich Küchemann , who was the same age and who had worked there since 1936. Your research work went to the Center for Scientific Reporting in Aviation Research (ZWB). While Küchemann had the appearance of representing the research results in university teaching and in public, Weber preferred to work in the research laboratories.

After the war ended in 1945, Küchemann was initially employed by the British occupying forces at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) in Farnborough , Weber followed him in 1947. In 1953 she received British citizenship. Both were initially involved in the development of the Handley Page Victor bomber and designed its swept wings . In 1953 their joint book Aerodynamics of Propulsion appeared , Weber also influenced Küchemann's main work, The Aerodynamic Design of Aircraft, which was published posthumously .

Since 1956, both had been part of the British-French development team for a supersonic passenger aircraft that made its maiden flight as Concorde in 1969, for whose shape and flight characteristics she contributed the mathematical foundations.

Weber lived as a neighbor of Küchemann in Wrecclesham from 1953 . She retired in 1975. She spent the last few years in a retirement home in nearby Ewshot , where she died in 2014.

Fonts (selection)

  • with Dietrich Küchemann: Further measurements on annular profiles. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics 1952. First, ZWB, Research Report 1236/8, Washington, DC 1943.
  • with Dietrich Küchemann: J 1 cooling. MAP, Völkenrode 1947.
  • Application of theory of incompressible flow around a swept wing at high subsonic mach numbers. Ministry of Supply, London 1948.
  • mit Dietrich Küchemann: Design of wing junction, fuselage and nacelles to obtain the full benefit of sweptback wings at high Mach number: Addendum, additional tables of coefficients. Ministry of Supply, London 1949.
  • with Dietrich Küchemann: Concerning the flow about ring-shaped cowlings. Part II, Annular bodies of infinite length with circulation for smooth entrance. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Washington, DC 1951.
  • with Dietrich Küchemann: Annular bodies of infinite length with circulation for smooth entrance. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, Washington, DC, 1951.
  • with Dietrich Küchemann: Aerodynamics of propulsion. McGraw-Hill, New York 1953.
  • with JA Lawford: The reflection effect of fences at low speeds. HMSO, London 1954 [published] 1956.
  • with Dietrich Küchemann, GG Brebner: Low speed tests on 45 deg swept-back wings. HMSO, London 1958.
  • General relativity and gravitational waves. Interscience, New York 1961.
  • Dietrich Küchemann: The aerodynamic design of aircraft. A detailed introd. to the current aerodynamic knowledge and pract. guide to the solution of aircraft design problems. Pergamon Press, Oxford 1978.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Nigel Fountain: Johanna Weber obituary. Mathematician who was instrumental in the development of Concorde. In: theguardian.com. November 9, 2014, accessed December 15, 2014.
  2. ↑ Gordon Cramb, Clive Cookson: Wing woman Whose sums let Concorde take to the skies. In: Financial Times . November 22, 2014, p. 8.
personal data
SURNAME Weber, Johanna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-British mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH August 8, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH October 24, 2014
Place of death Ewshot , Hampshire , United Kingdom