Leichtweiß Institute
The Leichtweiß Institute for Hydraulic Engineering at the Technical University of Braunschweig was founded on an initiative by Ludwig Leichtweiß in 1939, but did not start research until 1947 after the war damage had been repaired.
history
Although the institute was only newly created in 1939, as an institute in the civil engineering and surveying department of the TU Braunschweig it can look back on almost two hundred years of tradition in teaching and research in the field of hydraulic engineering (as of 2019).
August Christian Gottlieb Brauns gave lectures on hydrostatic , hydromechanical and hydraulic fundamentals in relation to "hydraulic engineering" for the first time in the winter semester of 1823/24 and can therefore be considered the founder of research in the field of hydraulic engineering at the TU Braunschweig. Around 1850 he was followed by Heinrich Karl Friedrich Ahlgurd , who expanded the subjects of his lectures to include the areas of river , electricity and port construction, irrigation and drainage as well as weirs , locks , canals and water pipes . After Ahlgurd's retirement , Ernst Haeseler , Johannes Andreas Freiherr von Wagner and Johann Mathias Arnold followed until Hubert Engels was appointed to the chair in 1887, but only three years later (1890) moved to the TU Dresden . In Dresden he was given the means to build the first river engineering laboratory in the world in 1897, which he had been denied in Braunschweig for financial reasons.
Max Karl Emil Möller , Engels' successor to the chair, was able to build a laboratory with third-party funding just one year later, in 1898, which he also used to establish hydraulic engineering experiments at the Technical University of Braunschweig and which he continuously expanded during his teaching activities until 1925. The laboratory was primarily used to research questions about the laws of river engineering.
In 1925, Möller was followed by Ludwig Leichtweiß, the namesake of the institute and the current research institute (since 1953 Leichtweiß Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Foundation Engineering). With his own funds but also with the support of industry, he succeeded in building a completely new laboratory in a new building by 1939. Due to the turmoil of World War II, however, it was not until 1947 that work and research could be carried out at this research institute.
Friedrich Zimmermann as successor of Leichtweiß, who was appointed to the institute in transition in 1950, succeeded in increasing his staff from six permanent employees to over 60, mostly privately financed employees. After his retirement in 1971, the era that had been shaped by Zimmermann also ended.
The Leichtweiß Institute experienced a cut in 1971 with the appointment of Alfred Führböters and Günther Garbrechts , who from then on jointly headed the institute. Führböter took over the newly established chair for hydromechanics and coastal hydraulic engineering and Garbrecht the existing chair for water management , hydraulic engineering and cultural engineering . But as early as 1961, still during Zimmerman's time, there were indications that the institute had to constantly face new challenges in questions of research and science in the field of hydraulic engineering. From 1961 to 1987, Gerhard Schaffer (President of the Technical University of Braunschweig; 1979 to 1983) headed the Soil Science and Cultural Engineering Department as an independent department for the first time at a hydraulic engineering institute . Two other independent departments, also established in 1965, dealt with agricultural hydraulic engineering (from 1988 department agricultural hydraulic engineering and waste management ), headed by Hans-Jürgen Collins from 1972 to 1999 , taken over by Klaus Fricke as successor in 1999 , which is now in waste and resource management was renamed. The second department, hydrology and water management , was headed by Ulrich Maniak from 1971 to 2004 . Maniaks successor in 2004 was Günter Meon. Today the department is called hydrology, water management and water protection .
In 1978 a new Higher Education Act (NHG) came into force in Lower Saxony, as a result of which the two chairs Günther Garbrechts and Alfred Führböters were renamed into departments. Garbrecht's successors from 1987 to 2001 were Uwe Drewes and then Andreas Dittrich. In 1993, Führböter's successor was Hocine Oumeraci .
Departments
The institute currently (2019) consists of the following departments:
- Hydraulic engineering and water morphology (Jochen Aberle)
- Hydrology, water management and water protection (Günter Meon)
- Hydromechanics, coastal engineering and marine engineering (Nils Goseberg)
- Waste and Resource Management (Klaus Fricke)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The history of the Leichtweiß Institute. TU Braunschweig, May 6, 2019, accessed on October 16, 2019 .
- ↑ An employee of the archive of the TU Braunschweig expressly pointed out that the professor's name is written with an s at the end. Quote: Braun: August Christian Gottlieb Brauns [! with "s" at the end!]
- ↑ Tobias Gierra: Hubert Engels Laboratory. TU Dresden, August 30, 2017, accessed on October 16, 2019 .