SEEWALD

GERMANY (see also List of Individuals)

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15.1.1895 Odenkirchen/D - 4.2.1974 Aachen/D

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Friedrich Seewald had just finished his first year at Technical University of Munich when being called for military service, which he resumed as a fighter pilot. In 1919 he returned to Aachen University from where he graduated as a civil engineer in 1921, and where he submitted a PhD thesis in 1924. He then joined the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt DVL in Berlin- Adlershof of which he took over direction in 1936. It was shortly later the largest of all German research institutes in aviation. In 1942, Seewald was appointed professor of applied mathematics and fluid mechanics at Aachen University and in parallel directed its aerodynamic institute. He thus succeeded Carl Wieselsberger (1887-1941) who himself followed the founder of the institute, Theodor von Karman (1881-1963). The institute was relocated in 1944 to Bavaria because it suffered from the Allied forces, and returned to Aachen only in 1947. Research in aerodynamics was then forbidden in all Germany, however. Seewald officially retired in 1963 but continued lecturing in Aachen up to 1973.

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Up to 1945 Seewald was a distinguished leader in aerodynamics and in jet propulsion research. After DVL had been reorganized in 1954, Seewald was the chairman of its board and reported on the many developments that Germany had done in the past and those to be expected in the future. He noted that DVL had a novel high-speed wind tunnel to test supersonic flight elements. Seewald's research focused on fundamental problems of fluid mechanics. He recognized the need for a consolidation of research in aerodynamics and therefore established a novel branch of DVL at RWTH Aachen.

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_{Anonymous (1937). Seewald. Jahrbuch Deutsche Akademie der Luftfahrtforschung: 92-93. P}

_{Anonymous (1955). Prof. Seewald 60 Jahre alt. Flugwelt 7(2): 99.}

_{Anonymous (1974). Seewald. Aerodynamisches Institut Abhandlung 21: 3-5. RWTH: Aachen. P Blenk, H. (1955). Friedrich Seewald 60 Jahre. Zeitschrift für Flugwissenschaften 3(1): 25-26. P Naumann, A. (1974). Friedrich Seewald. Jahrbuch DGLR: 319-323.}

_{Poggendorff, J.C. (1953). Seewald, Friedrich Heinrich. Biographisch-Literarisches Handwörterbuch 7a: 376-377; 8: 2200. Akademie-Verlag: Berlin, with bibliography.}

_{Quick, A.W. (1974). Prof. Friedrich Seewald. DFVLR-Nachrichten 14: 582.}

_{Seewald, F. (1933). Die Strömung um Flügelprofile und deren Anwendung bei Strömungsmaschinen. Zeitschrift VDI 77(21): 573-580.}

_{Seewald, F. (1939). The work of the DVL. Journal of Royal Aeronautical Society 43: 508-545. http://www.aia.rwth-aachen.de/englische_seiten/history.html}