STEFANIAK

GERMANY (see also List of Individuals)

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6.3.1910 Halsbach/D - 31.5.1994 München/D

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Hans Stefan Stefaniak graduated from the Technical University of Munich TUM in 1935 and he submitted a PhD thesis there in 1940. From 1937 he was an assistant to Walther Kaufmann (1887-1965). Stefaniak submitted there in 1944 a habilitation thesis on aerodynamics. He was appointed Lecturer of mechanics in 1948 and promoted to associate professor in 1953. His particular interests were then regulation techniques and the mechanics of flight. In the mid 1950s, when Kaufmann's position was taken over by Erich Truckenbrodt (1917-), Stefaniak lectured in addition basic mechanics and fluid dynamics. He moved to the TUM Research Center Weihenstephan in 1957, where he was appointed professor in 1969, and from where he retired in 1976.

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Stefaniak was an expert in oscillation and regulation techniques, and in theoretical and experimental fluid mechanics. Vibrating suspended bridges thus were one of his research topics and he added considerably to the understanding of the transition phenomena from laminar to turbulent flows, thereby using a wind tunnel arrangement of the in-house aerodynamic laboratory. The effect of wind forces on civil engineering structures was originally investigated by Otto Flachsbart (1898-1957) and later adopted by his teacher Kaufmann. They were systematically applied to large highway bridges and other tall engineering structures. Other research topics considered by Stefaniak included the development of the Pitot tube for pressure measurement both in hydraulics and aerodynamics, fully laminar flows in pipes and laminar jets. Stefaniak took also interest in the optimized design of water supply schemes for cities such as Munich or Frankfurt.

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_{Denk, V. (1994). Hans Stefaniak. TUM Mitteilung 5: 53-54. P}

_{Poggendorff, J.C. (1953). Stefaniak, Hans Stefan. Biographisch-Literarisches Handwörterbuch}

_{7a: 506-507; 8: 2240. Akademie-Verlag: Berlin, with bibliography.}

_{Stefaniak, H. (1951). Pitotrohr, Zylinder- und Zweifingersonde als Staudruckmessgerät. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Physik 3: 181-185.}

_{Stefaniak, H. (1952). Bemerkung zum Begriff ‚Kritischer Turbulenzgrad'. ZAMM 32: 275-276. Stefaniak, H. (1955). Stabilität der ausgebildeten laminaren Rohrströmung bei höheren Reynolds-Zahlen. VDI-Berichte 3: 67-71.}

_{Stefaniak, H. (1956). Die vollständigen Integrale der Grenzschicht-Differentialgleichungen für den runden und ebenen laminaren Strahl. ZAMM 36: 310-311.}