Bernd-Helmut Kröplin (11 November 1944, in Schleswig,

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

– 1 January 2019) was a German engineer and academic.

Life

After a trade apprenticeship as a bricklayer, Kröplin studied Civil Engineering at the

Technical University of Braunschweig TU Braunschweig (, unofficially ''University of Braunschweig – Institute of Technology'') is the oldest ' (comparable to an institute of technology in the American system) in Germany. It was founded in 1745 as Collegium Carolinum and is a membe ...

in 1977 and received a PhD for a thesis on the elastoplastic stability of steel bridges. In 1979 Kröplin received
Heisenberg Scholarship
of the German Research Community DFG and in 1982 he received an appointment as a professor at the

University of Dortmund TU Dortmund University () is a technical university in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany with over 35,000 students, and over 6,000 staff including 300 professors, offering around 80 Bachelor's and master's degree programs. It is situate ...

"Applied numerical methods". From 1988 to 2010 Kröplin was dean of the Institute for Statics and Dynamics of Aerospace Structures of the

University of Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart () is a research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany with programs in civil, mechanical, ind ...

. In 1999 he and three employees received the Körber European Science Prize. With the prize money of 1.5 million German marks they were asked to produce telecommunication platforms that were stationary at 20 km above the ground. Prof. Kröplin died on 1 January 2019.

Non-academic work

Kröplin was from September 1996 to March 2002 Chairman of CargoLifter AG, a high-risk high-reward technology venture which was stopped when it was clear there was no commercial viability in a reasonable timeframe. When finances became tighter, he took a more active management role in technology development. As a researcher Kröplin became intrigued by the possibility that consciousness could have an effect on water. Kröplin sponsored a number of experiments which have been published in book form with many high quality pictures. This received lukewarm coverage in the press.

Publications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kroplin, Bernd 1944 births German engineers 2019 deaths Engineers from Schleswig-Holstein TU Braunschweig alumni Academic staff of the University of Stuttgart Academic staff of the Technical University of Dortmund