Kurt Klöppel

After completing his school education and an apprenticeship as a machine fitter, he went on to study mechanical engineering at the State Academy for Engineering in Chemnitz. That was followed by employment with Bleichert, a steel fabricator in Leipzig, and in the steelwork department of the Schichau shipbuilding yard in Danzig (Gdańsk); at the same time he studied civil engineering at Dresden TH, where Reinhold Krohn was on the teaching staff. Klöppel passed the diploma examination with distinction at Danzig (Gdańsk) TH in 1929. In that same year he took charge of the Technical-Scientific Section of the German Steelwork Association (DStV) and became managing director of the German Committee for Trials in Iron Construction (which later became the German Committee for Structural Steelwork, DASt). Klöppel gained his doctorate at Breslau TH in 1933. He was offered the chair of bridge-building (which also meant being responsible for the engineering laboratory) at Darmstadt TH in 1938 and was appointed chief editor of the journal Der Stahlbau, a job he performed until 1981. He lectured in theory of structures from 1939 onwards. After the war, Klöppel and his students contributed decisively to the international renown of (West) German steel construction. He fought consistently to raise the status of engineering sciences on a scientific policy level without neglecting his teaching and research duties as a university lecturer. Klöppel and his Darmstadt Institute for Theory of Structures & Structural Steelwork set standards in the field of structural theory, plastic theory and stability theory with respect to steel buildings, welding technology, mechanics of materials and structural steelwork as a whole. Without doubt, Klöppel was the No. 1 authority on German steel construction and the very incarnation of steel construction theory.

Main contributions to structural analysis:

Hängebrücken mit besonderer Stützbedingung des Versteifungsträgers [1940]; Berechnung von Hängebrücken nach der Theorie II. Ordnung unter Berücksichtigung der Nachgiebigkeit der Hänger [1941]; Formänderungsgrößenverfahren in der Statik [1947]; Rückblick und Ausblick auf die Entwicklung der wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen des Stahlbaues [1948]; Aufgaben und Ziele der Zeitschrift „Der Stahlbau“ [1951/1]; Die Theorie der Stahlverbundbauweise in statisch unbestimmten Systemen unter Berücksichtigung des Kriecheinflusses [1951/2]; Zur Einführung der neuen Stabilitätsvorschriften [1952/3]; Geheimrat Prof. Dr.-Ing. E. h. August Hertwig [1955]; Die Einheit der Wissenschaft und der Ingenieur [1958]; Unmittelbare Ermittlung von Einflußlinien mit dem Formänderungsgrößen-Verfahren [1952/2]; Beulwerte ausgesteifter Rechteckplatten [1960/1968]; Systematische Ableitung der Differentialgleichungen für ebene anisotrope Flächentragwerke [1960]; Zur Berechnung von Netzkuppeln [1962]; Übersicht über Berechnungsverfahren für Theorie II. Ordnung [1964]; Die Statik im Zeichen der Anpassung an elektronische Rechenautomaten [1965] 

Source: Kurrer, Karl-Eugen The History of the Theory of Structures, Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn Verlag für Architektur und technische Wissenschaften GmbH, Berlin (Deutschland), ISBN 3-433-01838-3, 2008; p. 741

Participation in the following structures & large-scale projects:

• Mintard Viaduct