Leopold Müller (civil engineer)

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Leopold Müller at the Geomechanics Colloquium 1966 in Salzburg

Leopold Müller , also Leopold Müller-Salzburg , (born January 9, 1908 in Salzburg ; † August 1, 1988 ibid) was a university professor in Karlsruhe and an Austrian pioneer in rock mechanics , tunnel construction and engineering geology .

Life and professional history

After childhood and youth in Salzburg, Leopold Müller graduated from the local academic high school together with Herbert von Karajan in 1926 . Karajan then studied engineering at the Technical University in Vienna and Müller studied civil engineering there from the winter semester 1926/27 and also began studying timpani and drums at the Vienna Academy for Music and Performing Arts. At times he also played the timpani with the Vienna Philharmonic and earned money as a silent film pianist in cinemas. While Karajan soon after switched to the Vienna Academy for Music and Performing Arts to become a conductor, Leopold Müller remained studying engineering.

In March 1932, Müller passed the second state examination at the Faculty of Civil Engineering with distinction. Since he couldn't find any work afterwards, not even an unpaid volunteer position , he applied to Josef Stini , his professor of engineering geology, for a topic for a doctorate . As early as July 1933 he submitted the work assigned to him under the title Studies on Statistical Gap Measurement . After passing the Rigorosum with distinction, the Technical University awarded him the title and dignity of a Doctor of Technical Sciences.

This was followed by a period in Müller's vita, which he himself described as his “apprenticeship and wandering years”. He was active in a wide variety of road and tunnel construction projects, where he rose from assistant construction manager to site manager. These projects include the Grossglockner High Alpine Road and then from 1935 to 1945 (as construction manager at Polensky & Zöllner ) the construction of the Munich – Salzburg motorway in the Irschenberg - Weyarn section , the Kehlsteinstrasse and numerous war structures on the English Channel Islands and in Norway. After the Second World War, he worked on the construction of the Kaprun power station until 1948 .

He then received his license as a civil engineer and founded an engineering office for geology and civil engineering in Salzburg. The outstanding projects of this engineering office include the renovation of the Hohensalzburg Fortress and the Hercules building in Kassel , the construction of the Sarobi (Afghanistan) and Kurobe (Japan) dams , the design of the railway tunnel in Schwaikheim (Germany), and investigations into the causes the disaster of the Vajont dam (Italy). During these years the Salzburg Circle of Stini students was established, the Geomechanical Colloquium was founded in 1951, the International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM, now based in Lisbon, International Research Institute for Rock ) in 1962 and, as a result, the Austrian Society for Geomechanics  ( ÖGG) 1968. This made Salzburg - next to Leoben - an Austrian center of mining and engineering (Austrian school of rock mechanics) .

On the initiative of Hans Leussink , he was appointed to the University of Karlsruhe in 1965 , where he became head of the Department for Rock Mechanics at the Institute for Soil Mechanics and Rock Mechanics . With the generous funding of the German Research Foundation  (DFG), a special research area for rock mechanics could be set up there, in which Müller's scientific goals could be implemented and a large number of young civil engineers and geologists could be promoted. He also passed on his knowledge in more than 300 lectures and guest lectures in the USA, Italy, Japan and China.

In addition to his work as a university lecturer, Müller was also active worldwide as a consultant for numerous hydropower plants and tunnel projects. The PSW Vianden (Luxembourg) and Waldeck II (Northern Hesse) as well as the hydropower plants Rapel (Chile) and Tarbela (Pakistan), as well as several subway tunnels in Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Munich, Bochum and Dortmund are to be mentioned.

After retiring from the University of Karlsruhe for reasons of age, he took over an honorary professorship for geotechnical engineering and rock construction at the University of Salzburg from 1977 , where he held lectures on geomechanics, tunnel construction and rock mechanics until 1983. He especially used his retirement to work on his multi-volume textbook. In the midst of this work he died on August 1, 1988 in his hometown and rests in the local cemetery .

Müller also campaigned for monument protection in Salzburg and, together with his friend Hans Sedlmayr, prevented the demolition of around 400 old town houses in Getreidegasse and Judengasse and the development of the spa garden. He was a co-founder of three schools (Waldorf School in Prien, Rudolf Steiner School Salzburg , Werkschulheim Felbertal ).

meaning

At Müller's suggestion, a working group for geomechanics was founded in 1951, with the intention of tackling problems in civil engineering and mining that could not be mastered by one individual in an interdisciplinary collaboration between geologists, geophysicists, civil engineers and mining engineers. The International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM), whose first president was Müller from 1962 to 1966, developed from these beginnings, which was also known as the “Salzburger Kreis”. In 1968 the Austrian Society for Geomechanics (ÖGG) was founded as the national society of the ISRM, whose tasks are to promote scientific research into the subsoil and its behavior. Its first chairman was Müller until 1975.

In the course of his professional activity he made several inventions, among which the development of a television probe for investigating boreholes stands out (DE 1068196 of January 1, 1957). With this probe it was possible to determine the spatial position of fissures in the mountains, which is especially important when exploring underground structures. The most famous development, which he pushed forward together with Franz Pacher and Ladislaus von Rabcewicz , was the establishment of a new tunneling  method , known as the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NAT / NAT).

Müller published over 200 scientific publications, including his multi-volume textbook Der Felsbau . For many years he was the editor of the journal Geologie und Bauwesen , whose editing he took over from Josef Stini after his death.

The appreciation that Müller enjoyed nationally and internationally was expressed in numerous honors. The Montanistische Hochschule Leoben awarded him the Dr. mont.  H. c. , the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration  (SME) presented him with the Rock Mechanics Award in 1971 , which was followed in 1972 by the State of Salzburg's Gold Medal of Merit . In 1974 he was appointed an external corresponding member of the mathematical and physical section of the University of Bologna and received the Carl Friedrich Gauß Medal of the Braunschweig Scientific Society in 1983 and at the same time became a corresponding member of the class for building sciences of this society. In 1984 he was awarded the Hans Cloos Medal by the International Association for Engineering Geology and the environment  (IAEG), and one year later he became an honorary member of the mathematics and natural sciences class of the Austrian Academy of Sciences  (ÖAW). In 1985 the city of Salzburg made him an honorary citizen and the Federal Geological Institute  (GBA) in Vienna honored him with the presentation of the Wilhelm-Ritter-von-Haidinger Medal . In the year he died, he was awarded the Johann Joseph Ritter von Prechtl Medal by the Vienna University of Technology and the Ring of the State of Salzburg .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 350 years of the Academic Gymnasium Salzburg 1617-1967 onA, pp. 181-183.
  2. ^ A b Fecker, Negele, Spaun: Leopold Müller-Salzburg , in VDI (Ed.): Yearbook 1996 , Düsseldorf 1996, pp. 318–319 (whole article, pp. 317–339).
  3. ^ Leopold Müller: Development tendencies in geomechanics - A geomechanics concept in the sense of Hans Closs. Summary. In: Geomechanics of mountain-forming processes and their effects on rock structures above and below ground / Geomechanics of Orogenetic Events and Their Effects on the Construction of Rock Structures on Subsurface and Underground : Lectures of the Hans Cloos Colloquium (25th Geomechanics Colloquium) of the Austrian Society for geomechanics; Volume 6 of Rock Mechanics / Felsmechanik / Mecanique des roches. Supplementa, Springer-Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-370914160-1 , reference page 6 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  4. ^ The Society: Introduction to ISRM. isrm.net (accessed May 1, 2016).
  5. ↑ Edwin Fecker (Ed.): Festschrift Leopold Müller-Salzburg on the 65th birthday of Widmann Verlag, 1974, p. 11.
  6. ↑ Festschrift Leopold Müller-Salzburg on the occasion of his 65th birthday, pp. 11–15
  7. ↑ International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM) (English)
  8. ↑ Rock Mechanics Award ( Memento of the original from November 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / old.smenet.org
  9. ↑ International Association for Engineering Geology and the environment (English)
personal data
SURNAME Müller, Leopold
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Müller-Salzburg, Leopold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian tunnel construction pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Salzburg
DATE OF DEATH August 1, 1988
Place of death Salzburg