Irmgard Flügge-Lotz

Irmgard Flügge - Lotz, née Irmgard Lotz (* July 16, 1903 in Hameln, † May 22, 1974 in Stanford, USA) was a German mathematician, aerodynamicist and control technician, later head of department at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Flow Research, Göttingen, and then professor at Stanford University.

Life

After graduating from high school in 1923 at the Real Gymnasium Study Institute in Hanover, she began a study of mathematics and its applications at the Technical University of Hanover, which she completed in 1927 with the Diploma Examination in Mathematics. From 1927 to 1929 she worked as an assistant at the chair of practical mathematics and descriptive geometry by Horst von Sanden at the Technical University of Hanover. Bonded to it she received her PhD in 1929 on "The warming of the punch during the upsetting process ." From 1929 to 1938 she was at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Flow Research in Göttingen ( led by Ludwig Prandtl ) employed, first as assistant, then as a group leader and most recently as an unofficial head of department ( Theoretical aerodynamics). In 1938 she married the mathematician and aerodynamicist Wilhelm Flügge ( 1904-1990 ) and was since then the name Irmgard Flügge - Lotz. The couple moved in 1938 to Berlin, where he worked until 1945 as a department head in the German Experimental Institute for Aviation ( DVL ), Berlin- Adlershof, working in particular on automatic flight control. During this time she worked for Price duties of the Lilienthal Society there as a consultant and from 1941 as one of four referees. In 1944, parts of the DVL outsourced to Lake Constance. After the unconditional surrender There, the two arrived in Paris about the Office National d' Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales ( ONERA ), where she worked as a research scientist from 1946 to 1948. 1948 both came to the U.S., where they both worked at Stanford University. Her husband was there instantly professor, she was a lecturer, but fulfilled all the duties of a full professorship: they regularly gave lectures on hydrodynamics and aerodynamics, automatic flight control and oversaw promotions. Only in 1961 she was appointed a full professor and the first female professor of engineering at Stanford University. In 1968 she retired. In 1971 she held the von Karman Lecture (Trends in automatic control in the load two Decades ).

Irmgard Flügge - Lotz made ​​major work on aerodynamics, including particularly the boundary layer theory. After working for solving differential equations in the distribution of lift of the wing is named " Lotz method". In the course of their employment with the theory of automatic control techniques and aircraft controls ( autopilot ) they contributed substantially to the design and understanding of the special Phänomeme of switching ( " black and white " ) regulations.

Writings

• The heating of the die during the upsetting process. Dissertation. Technical University of Hannover, 1929.
• Discontinuous Automatic Control. Princeton University Press, 1953.
• Discontinuous and Optimal Control. McGraw Hill, 1968.