Professor Hans Joachim Gerhardt Was Born in 1944In Dresden, Germany. Having Grown up In

Professor Hans Joachim Gerhardt was born in 1944in Dresden, Germany. Having grown up in post-war Europe he studied Mechanical Engineering at RWTH Aachen University, West Germany and later at Brown University, Rhode Island.

In 1972 he joined the University of Applied Science Aachen as professor and, together with his colleague Carl Kramer, established the Fluid Mechanics Laboratory there. The laboratory’s early research mainly focused on industrial flows and onbuilding and vehicle aerodynamics. The two professors,Gerhardt and Kramer,soon became known within the international wind engineering community as the ‘Aachen Twins’ and are probably best remembered for organising the ‘Aachen Colloquia’. Soon after the first colloquium in 1974 the conference became a meeting point foran international group of researchers in the field of wind engineering and industrial aerodynamics. The 1987 colloquium becamealso the Seventh International Conference on Wind Engineering.

In 1990 the activities of professor Gerhardt led to the foundation of the Institute for Industrial Aerodynamics (IFI) as the first Joint Institute at the University of Applied Scienceand also the first institution of this kind in the state of North Rhine Westphalia. At this institute professor Gerhardt continued his research work on e.g. wind loads on double-shell facades or the development of the ‘Sand Erosion Technique’ to visualise the ground-near velocity field around buildings. He has organised numerous aerodynamic seminars for architects, building engineers and building experts.

During the years Professor Gerhardt published more than 200 scientific papers. Hisresearch found entry into German and European Codes of Practice on wind loading of block type buildings, roofing and smoke extraction from buildings. He has been active on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics for many years.

Ever since his student days in Rhode Island Hans Gerhardt has been a keen yachtsmanwith a strong interest in the fluid mechanics of sailing.This passion he passed on to his son,Frederik, first through numerous simple, child-friendly explanations of sail trim or the Strouhal Number of ‘singing’ rigging wires, later through more scientific discussions on leading-edge separation bubbles and vortex shedding.

Until his early and sudden death, Hans stayednot only a very active and successful researcher but he also enjoyed travelling, reading and sailing his classic yacht ‘Little Apple’.