Paul Fillunger

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Paul Fillunger (born June 25, 1883 in Vienna ; † March 7, 1937 there ) was an Austrian mechanical engineer.

life and work

Fillunger, who had several engineers among his ancestors, studied from 1901 at the Technical University of Vienna and from 1906 was an engineer at the kk Austrian State Railways . In 1908 he received his doctorate at the Technical University of Vienna ( An attempt to find the distribution of stress in wedge-shaped bodies in a theoretical way ). From 1910 he taught mathematics, mechanical engineering and technical drawing (from 1913 as a professor) at the Technological Trade Museum in Vienna, and from 1918 was head of the local research institute for building and machine materials. Fillunger's research on the calculation of riveted solid wall girders originates from this creative period . During the First World War he was drafted as a Landsturm engineer from 1915. In 1920 he became a building officer. From 1923 he was professor for elasticity theory and strength theory at the TH Vienna and head of the faculty for technical mechanics, but did not have the direction of the laboratory.

Fillunger developed a theory of liquid-filled porous media after he had published a paper on buoyancy in dams as early as 1913 (which also became his habilitation thesis). He also came into conflict with the then famous pioneer of soil mechanics Karl von Terzaghi , who has also been a professor at the Vienna University of Technology since 1929. Fillunger attacked his theory of consolidation violently and in a polemical manner. Terzaghi, with whom Fillunger had also clashed over the question of the establishment of the Reichsbrücke , saw his reputation and that of the emerging scientific soil mechanics in jeopardy and, having previously published a counter-written, brought in the university management for the purpose of disciplinary proceedings. When Fillunger's conviction emerged and Fillunger also realized that he had gone too far in the allegations against Terzaghi, he and his wife committed suicide by opening the gas pipes in his bathroom. In a suicide note, he admitted his misjudgment.

Reint de Boer published a book about the affair. He sees in Fillunger a subsequently forgotten forerunner of the modern theory of porous media (published in his above-mentioned pamphlet against Terzaghi from 1936). According to de Boer, he was ahead of his time and could not present his theories in an experimentally verifiable manner, in contrast to Terzaghi, who was always interested in a practical formulation.

According to de Boer, Fillunger, independently of Terzaghi, found the concept of effective tensions in his work from 1913. In this work, he clarified the then controversial question of whether the pore water pressure reduces the strength of the brick, which he also answered negatively experimentally. He also published some work on the statics of aircraft.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Three important plane states of tension , Journal for Mathematics and Physics, Volume 60, 1912, p. 275
  2. ↑ The calculation of riveted solid wall girders . In: Meeting reports of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Mathem.-natural Class, Division IIa, Volume 127, Issue 9, 1918, pp. 1987-2051. Vienna: State Printing Office
  3. ^ The buoyancy in dams , Austrian weekly publication for public building service, Volume 19, 1913, pp. 532, 567, Newer principles for the static calculation of dams , Journal of the Austrian Association of Engineers and Architects, Volume 23, 1914, p. 441. A later work is: The capillary pressure in dams , water management, Volume 27, 1934, Issue 13/14
  4. ↑ Fillunger earthwork mechanics? , Self-published, Vienna 1936, earthwork mechanics and science. A reply , self-published, Vienna 1937 (edited by Erwin Fillunger after his death)
  5. ↑ Fillunger saw the foundation in the alluvial sand of the Danube with anchoring of the load-bearing chains in concrete abutments as too dangerous, Terzaghi recommended constructive changes that included anchoring in the main girder itself, for which the pillars were reinforced. According to the investigation report, the changes were one of the reasons for the collapse in 1976. Terzaghi suspected that Fillunger's attack was at times the backing of Fillunger's attack (the professor at the Vienna University of Technology Saliger , who denied this) in connection with the Reichsbrücke, especially since malicious rumors were circulating from 1935 (which up to to Berlin), he would have proposed a suspension bridge, but then noticed the unsuitable building site and, due to the necessary re-planning, contributed to the considerable increase in the cost of the project. De Boor The engineer and the scandal , p. 220
  6. ↑ Among other things, he falsely accused him of not mastering differential calculus.
  7. ^ De Boer The Engineer and the Scandal , 2005, p. 156
personal data
SURNAME Fillunger, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian civil engineer
DATE OF BIRTH June 25, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 7, 1937
Place of death Vienna