Rudiger Rackwitz

Rüdiger Rackwitz (born July 6, 1941 , † July 11, 2012 in Munich ) was a German civil engineer who dealt with safety and reliability issues in civil engineering.

Life

Rüdiger Rackwitz addressed already in the late 1960s at the Technical University of Munich at the Department of Hubert ruffled with probabilistic safety analysis and modeling of structures. In 1975 he received his doctorate at the Technical University of Munich (The application of Bayesian statistical decision theory to problems of quality control of concrete). From 1974 to 1984 he headed the SFB 96 Reliability Theory of Structures at the Technical University of Munich with Rüsch and Herbert Kupfer . He was on various technical committees, including international ones, which also provided the basis for standards in this area. Rackwitz developed software (like Strurel ) and algorithms (like the Rackwitz-Fiessler algorithm ) and dealt with social acceptance of safety levels in construction (Life Quality Index). In 1994 he became an adjunct professor at the Technical University of Munich.

In 1975 he was visiting scholar at MIT and he was visiting professor at the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby. He was an active member of the Joint Committee on Structural Safety (JCSS) and was its President from 1994 to 1999.

In 2008 he received the Alfred M. Freudenthal Medal of the ASCE.

Fonts

• with Hubert Rüsch, Rudolf Sell: Statistical Analysis of Concrete Strength, Ernst and Son 1969
• Some contributions to the reliability theory of buildings, Technical University of Munich, Laboratory for Structural Engineering 1977
• with Bernd Fiessler, Rainer Hawranek: Numerical methods for probabilistic design methods and safety verifications, SFB 96, reports on the safety theory of buildings, TU Munich 1976
• with B. Fiessler, Hans-Joachim Neumann: The approximate calculation of the failure probability with the help of rotationally symmetrical limit state surfaces of the second order, SFB 96, reports on the safety theory of buildings, TU Munich 1977
• Theoretical basis for the determination of the rated value of component resistances from experiments, SFB 96, reports on the safety theory of buildings, TU Munich 1979
• with B. Peintinger: Numerical uncertainty analysis of slopes, SFB 96, reports on the safety theory of buildings, TU Munich 1980
• Response surfaces in structural reliability, SFB 96, TU Munich 1982

Web links

• Obituary by Daniel Straub, civil engineer 2012, pdf
• Reminder page at the Technical University of Munich

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Strurel
2. ↑ ABOUT JCSS. Retrieved February 19, 2020 .