Obituary for F.S. Rostásy

Prof. em. Dr.-Ing. Dr.-Ing. E.h. Ferdinand Stefan Rostásy died on August 16, 2018 at the age of 86 years after severe illness.

From 1976 until his retirement in 1997, F.S. Rostásy was the head of the Division of Building Materials at the Institute for Building Materials, Concrete Construction and Fire Safety (IBMB) at Braunschweig University of Technology and Director of the Civil Engineering Materials Testing Institute (MPA).

Born in Vienna, he started his scientific career at the University of Stuttgart, followed by activities in the USA and the construction industry. After his habilitation in Stuttgart in 1975, he was called to the TU Braunschweig.

The scientific work of Ferdinand Rostásy shows a wide range of topics. To his early work to restraint stresses, eigenstresses and cracking of concrete members he remained connected throughout the entire time of his scientific work. With his working group he created internationally highly recognized engineering models to describe the material behaviour of young concrete and to control early thermal cracking of concrete structures. As one of the first, he turned to the emerging non-metallic composite materials. He developed recognized solutions for anchoring and time dependent behavior and was a pioneer in reinforcing concrete structures with glued reinforcements made of carbon fibre lamellas and sheets. A further focus was on the behaviour of concrete at extreme temperatures, e.g. in case of a fire and at very low temperatures for the storage of liquefied natural gas. As one of the first he provided systematic research of the mechanisms of concrete durability and, almost a hobby, with the preservation of historical stone masonry.

Characteristic of the work of F.S. Rostásy was his far-sighted strategy of linking practice and research. His goal has always been to create practical solutions for building practice by understanding the fundamental contexts.

F.S. Rostásy was an exemplary teacher, imaginative and far-sighted, internationally highly respected scientist. We will miss his experience and openness, his clever advice, his understanding, his human warmth and his humour. He will remain unforgotten.

Harald Budelmann, Braunschweig

Prof. em. Dr.-Ing. Dr.-Ing. E.h. Ferdinand Stefan Rostásy  was a member of TC 119-TCE : Avoidance of thermal cracking at early ages.