FILLUNGER

AUSTRIA (see also List of Individuals)

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25.6.1883 Wien/A - 7.3.1937 Wien/A

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Paul Fillunger graduated from the Vienna Technical University as a mechanical engineer to lecture at the Versuchsanstalt für Bauund Maschinenmaterial of the Vienna Technological Trade Museum. During World War I he received a Habilitation degree from his university in mechanics, and was promoted to Baurat in 1920. He was appointed professor at TU Vienna in 1923, yet without directing the materials laboratory to conduct experiments. Together with his wife Margarethe Fillunger committed suicide.

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Fillunger has significantly advanced the knowledge in pore water pressure related to dam design. Starting in 1913, he pointed to its effect on dam structures and introduced engineering tools to determine the most important issues, based on the Darcy law and the groundwater flow theory. He also devised the three governing forces buoyancy, internal friction and capillarity under which the matrix of a fluid skeleton in a granular medium undergoes deformations. By introducing the effective stresses in the porous medium, he successfully explained the basic phenomena relating to modern soil mechanics. Although Karl von Terzaghi (1883-1963) may be considered the true founder of that modern engineering branch, Fillunger had a significant impact. Disputes between the two led to reproaches that von Terzaghi's consolidation theory was determined from greed and that it contained a non-scientific basis. Fillunger's behavior caused the University directorate to drastic measures which finally led to the tragedy, an almost unique case in the history of German-speaking technical universities.

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_{Boer, R. de (1990). Wiener Beitrag zur Theorie poröser Medien und zur theoretischen Bodenmechanik. Österreichische Ingenieurund Architekten-Zeitschrift 135(10): 546-554. P}

_{Fillunger, P. (1913). Über die Anwendung des Trapezgesetzes zur statischen Berechnung von Talsperren. Selbstverlag: Wien.}

_{Fillunger, P. (1913). Der Auftrieb in Talsperren. Österreichische Wochenschrift für den Öffentlichen Baudienst 19(32): 532-555; 19(33): 567-570; 19(34): 586-593.}

_{Fillunger, P. (1929). Auftrieb und Unterdruck in Talsperren. Wasserwirtschaft 22(18): 334-336; 22(20): 371-337; 22(21): 388-390; 22(33): 562-566; 23(1): 63-66; 23(21): 446-447; 23(25): 519.}

_{Fillunger, P. (1936). Erdbaumechanik. Wien.}

_{Franke, P.-G., Kleinschroth, A. (1991). Fillunger, Paul. Kurzbiographien Hydraulik und Wasserbau: 446-447. Lipp: München. P}

_{Funk, P. (1937). P. Fillunger. Zeitschrift für angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik 17(3): 191.}