Wolfgang Knauss
Wolfgang Gustav Knauss (born December 12, 1933 in Mandel near Bad Kreuznach ) is a German-born American engineer. He was Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics and Applied Mechanics at Caltech .
Life
Knauss grew up in Siegen during the Second World War as the son of a Methodist pastor. In 1954 he graduated from the Helmholtz Realgymnasium in Heidelberg . After the war, the acquaintance of a Methodist pastor from Pasadena (Frank Williams), who made the family in Heidelberg, enabled Knauss to attend Pasadena City College and study at Caltech from 1955 with a bachelor's degree in 1958. Originally he wanted to turn to rocket technology, came to fracture mechanics through aeronautics professor Max L. Williams . In 1959 he received his master’s degree, and in 1963 he received his doctorate from Williams (Rupture phenomena in viscoelastic materials). Afterwards he was assistant professor and carried out research on fracture propagation in viscoelastic materials on behalf of NASA. That was relevant in connection with solid rocket engines. In 1969 he became Associate Professor and in 1978 Professor of Aeronautics and Applied Mechanics. From 2001 he held the Von Karman professorship and in 2004 he retired.
In 2010, he was awarded the Timoshenko Medal for fundamental contributions to fracture mechanics, including mixed-type fractures, dynamic fractures, interface and adhesion fractures, and the characterization of material behavior and failure on the microscale with an emphasis on experimental mechanics . In 1986/87 he received the Humboldt Research Award , with which he was at the Universities of Karlsruhe and Kassel, and in 1977 he gave lectures in the Soviet Union at the invitation of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, whose Kapitza Medal he received in 1997 and whose foreign member of the 1997 became. In 2001 he received the Koiter Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and in 1995 the Murray Medal from the Society for Experimental Mechanics. In 1998 he became a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions on time-dependent fracture mechanics of polymers, at interfaces and under dynamic loads.
He was the founder (with Emri) of Mechanics of Time Dependent Materials magazine . Knauss advised aerospace companies such as Lockheed , Rocketdyne, Aerojet-General, Hercules, General Dynamics and General Electric (GE Space Division) as well as polymer chemistry companies such as DuPont and Firestone .
He has been married to Lydia Knauss since 1958, whom he had come from Germany.
Fonts
- Editor with Richard Schapery Recent Advances in Fracture Mechanics: Honoring Mel and Max Williams , Kluwer 1998
- Editor with ML Williams Dynamic Fracture , Dordrecht, Boston: Nijhoff 1985
- Editor with AJ Rosakis : Nonlinear Fracture - Recent Advances , Kluwer 1990
literature
- Charles Steele, K. Ravi-Chandar, KM Liechti (Eds.) Time Dependent Problems in Mechanics: The Wolfgang G. Knauss Anniversary Volume , Pergamon Press 1995
- Ravi-Chandar, Liechti, Kyriakides (eds.), J. Applied Mechanics, Volume 73, Issue 5, 2006 (dedicated to Knauss), Current Trends in Mechanics , GALCIT (Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology) Symposium 2004, foreword with a short biography
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ↑ Laudation for fundamental contributions to the mechanics of fracture, covering mixed-mode fracture, dynamic fracture, and interface and adhesive fracture; and the characterization of material response and failure at the microscale, with an emphasis on experimental mechanics
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Knauss, Wolfgang |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Knauss, Wolfgang Gustav (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-born American engineering scientist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 12, 1933 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Almond near Bad Kreuznach |