HERMANN

GERMANY (see also List of Individuals)

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15.12.1904 Leipzig/D - 17.5.1991 Huntsville/USA

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Rudolf Hermann earned his PhD in physics from the University of Leipzig in 1929 and submitted a habilitation thesis in 1935 to Aachen University. He was a collaborator of Ludwig Schiller (1882-1961) from 1929 to 1933 and then headed the wind tunnel division in Aachen until 1937. Then he joined the rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun in Peenemünde as an expert in the Army Rocket Experimental Station. At the end of World War II Hermann as many of his colleagues were recruited in the USA as top scientists in a variety of fields for the benefit of science. Hermann joined the Air Engineering Development Division at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton OH. In 1950, by then American citizen, he was appointed professor at the Department of Aeronautical Engineering at the Minnesota University. In 1962, he accepted the position of Director of the newly founded aeronautical research laboratory at the University of Alabama, Huntsville.

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Hermann's early works in the 1930s was parallel to those of his mentor Schiller, such as a common paper on the resistance of plates with high Reynolds numbers. Once with von Braun, Hermann designed two supersonic wind tunnels of maximum speeds of Mach 4.4 and 3.1, respectively. The theoretical design of the de Laval nozzles used for accelerating the tunnel flows to supersonic velocities proved to be a complex task. Hermann and his collaborators gathered supersonic flight data on the aerodynamic design of the German rockets used towards the end of World War II. In the 1950s, Hermann conducted research on the supersonic and hypersonic flow characteristics of rocket sleds and ramjets with support from the US Air Force and Navy. He was one of the top researchers in high-speed aerodynamics in the 1950s and the 1960s.

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_{Cattell, J. (1955). Hermann, Prof. Rudolf. American men of science 1: 843. Bowker: New York.}

_{Hermann, R. (1961). Hypersonic flow problems during re-entry into the atmosphere. Jahrbuch}

_{der WGL: 131-144.}

_{Hermann, R. (1965). Supersonic inlet diffusers and introduction to internal aerodynamics.}

_{Honeywell: Minneapolis.}

_{Ruppe, H.O. (1969). Rudolf Hermann 65 Jahre. Zeitschrift für Flugwissenschaften 17(12): 459. Ruppe, H.O. (1991). Rudolf Hermann. Jahrbuch DGLR (2): 1329. P}

_{Schiller, R., Hermann, R. (1930). Widerstand von Platte bei hohen Reynoldsschen Zahlen. Ingenieur-Archiv 1: 391-398. http://www.aem.umn.edu/info/history/03_NotableFaculty.shtml P}