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History of the IAM

The first institute director was August Ritter (1826 - 1908), who gave lectures at the polytechnical school in Hannover since 1856. He entered the university of Aachen in October 1870 at its opening as a teacher of engineering mechanics and mechanics. The cutting method in the theory of the frameworks named after Ritter is extensively known. His scientific interest also included many other physical questions, i.e. the theory of the adiabatic change of condition. Ritter held the Faculty for Mechanics (the name at that time) until 1899.

Arnold Sommerfeld (1868 - 1951) became his successor in the year 1900, who came from the mining college Clausthal to Aachen. Sommerfeld followed a call to the university of Munich on the Chair for theoretical physics in 1906.

In the years 1906 to 1912 Hans Reissner (1874 - 1967) was director of the Chair for Mechanics. Reissner treated the problem of the aeronautics with scientific methods. The university owes to his inspiration the origin of the aerodynamic institute, which was founded in the years 1912 - 1914. In 1912, Reissner received a call to the TH Berlin.

The direction of the Chair for Mechanics and aeronautical aerodynamics (and the aerodynamic institute) was transfered to Theodor of Karman (1881 - 1963) in 1913. Von Karman had a worldwide reputation due to his work in the area of fluid dynamics. In 1930 he took over the direction of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena in addition to the chair in Aachen. In the year 1931 von Karman referred to the rise of political danger in Germany. This evoked the fear at the Empire Traffic Ministry 1932, that he might leave Germany. On January 27th 1934, von Karman was requested by the Prussian Ministry of Education and Arts to ultimatively declare his will to stay in Germany. Thereupon, on February 17th he asked for his dismissal.

From 1934 to 1939 Wilhelm Müller (1880 - 1968) led the Chair for Mechanics. He worked mainly on the areas of the theory the viscuous fluids and the mechanics of the flight. 1939, Müller followed a call to the university of Munich.

In 1941, the chair with the new name Chair and Institute for Mechanics was taken over by Fritz Schultz-Grunow (1906 - 1987). Due to the war, the library and the workshop were transferred in 1944 to Raeren / Belgium, the lectures were stopped.

Schultz - Grunow led the institute up to his emeritation in the year 1975. The diversity of his work area is documented by over 50 dissertations, which were prepared under his direction. They included topics from the areas of electricity, rheology, fluid dynamics, thermodynamics and gas dynamics. Schultz-Grunow was highly involved in the development of shock wave tubes and the pertinent short time measurement techniques. The laboratories which were first situated in the bunker at the Römerstraße were replaced in 1971 because of a successful call by the current shock wave laboratory which changed to the Faculty for Mechanical Engineering in 1972.

From 1975 to 1995 Gerhard Adomeit was the director of the Institute of General Mechanics. His main research topics were mainly in the field of gas dynamics, especially combustion processes.

Since August 1st 1995, Dieter Weichert leads the institute. He shifted the fields of research to structural and solid mechanics. Main topics are nonlinear behaviour of materials and damage caused by inelastic effects.

The Chair and the Institute of General Mechanics originally belonged to the mathematical - scientific faculty (earlier: Faculty of General Sciences). The change to the faculty for mechanical engineering took place at the 01.01.1989.

Today there are approx. 35 constant staff members engaged, 15 of them as scientific employees, 20 as employees in education and administration, in the construction office, the electro - workshop and the mechanical workshop. Moreover, there are approx. 35 student assistants employed.

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