Hans Georg Küssner (14 September 190021 March 1984) was a German

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

and aeronautical scientist known for his work in the field of aeroelasticity.

Work

Hans Georg Küssner was born on 14 September 1900 in Bartenstein, then part of the

East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...

n district of in the

German Reich German ''Reich'' (, from ) was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. The ''Reich'' became understood as deriving its authority and sovereignty entirely from a continuing unitary German ''Volk'' ("na ...

. Küssner studied at the Technical University of the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk University of Technology) and received his doctorate in 1928 with his dissertation "Das wirtschaftliche Ozeanflugzeug" under Viktor Rembold. In the same year he moved to the German Research Institute for Aviation in Berlin, where he worked on the aircraft problem of flutter, which was reflected in a large number of publications. In 1934, Küssner moved to the Aerodynamics Research Institute in

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

. In 1936 he formulated the Küssner function to describe the unsteady effect on wings caused by

turbulence In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is fluid motion characterized by chaotic changes in pressure and flow velocity. It is in contrast to laminar flow, which occurs when a fluid flows in parallel layers with no disruption between ...

. In 1939, Küssner was appointed head of the "Institute for Transient Processes". Here he achieved his scientific breakthrough in 1940 with his General Wing Theory — the

integral equation In mathematical analysis, integral equations are equations in which an unknown function appears under an integral sign. In mathematical notation, integral equations may thus be expressed as being of the form: f(x_1,x_2,x_3,\ldots,x_n ; u(x_1,x_2 ...

for oscillating three-dimensional wing systems in subsonic flow. For his work, Küssner was appointed professor and corresponding member of the German Academy of Aviation Research. The computationally expensive numerical solution of the equation was an application field of

Konrad Zuse Konrad Ernst Otto Zuse (; ; 22 June 1910 – 18 December 1995) was a German civil engineer, List of pioneers in computer science, pioneering computer scientist, inventor and businessman. His greatest achievement was the world's first programm ...

's Z3 computer, which could drastically reduce the time required. After the Second World War, Küssner joined the Max Planck Institute for Flow Research in Göttingen in 1947, where he turned to theoretical physics and

continuum mechanics Continuum mechanics is a branch of mechanics that deals with the deformation of and transmission of forces through materials modeled as a ''continuous medium'' (also called a ''continuum'') rather than as discrete particles. Continuum mec ...

. In 1957, Küssner again moved to the Aerodynamics Research Institute, where he became head of the department for aeroelasticity. Due to Küssner's international reputation, he became a member of the committee for structures and materials of the NATO agency

AGARD The Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development (AGARD) was an agency of NATO that existed from 1952 to 1996. AGARD was founded as an Agency of the NATO Military Committee. It was set up in May 1952 with headquarters in Neuilly sur Sei ...

(Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development). In 1968 he became a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and in 1981 he was awarded the Ludwig-Prandtl-Ring by the German Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Personal life

Hans Georg Küssner married Martha Petter. Küssner died on 21 March 1984 in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

References

20th-century German physicists 1900 births 1984 deaths People from Bartoszyce {{Germany-physicist-stub