Prof Dr Ulrich Quast, together with Prof Valtinat and Prof Franke, established civil engineering in addition to environmental engineering (water, wastewater and environment) at the TUHH. He is therefore one of the founding professors in civil engineering.
Mr Quast studied civil engineering from 1957 to 1962, specialising in structural engineering at the Carlo-Wilhelmina Technical University in Braunschweig. He then worked for about two years in the design office of a large construction company in Munich. In 1965, Mr Quast returned to the Chair and Institute of Building Materials Science and Reinforced Concrete Construction at the TU in Braunschweig as a research assistant. Four years later, he completed his doctorate on ‘Suitable simplifications for solving the load-bearing problem of eccentrically compressed prismatic reinforced concrete columns with rectangular cross-sections’. This was followed by eight years working in an engineering office. In 1975, Mr Quast was recognised as a test engineer for structural analysis, specialising in solid construction. Two years later, he was appointed professor at the TU Braunschweig for the subject area ‘Theoretical principles in solid construction’. Mr Quast became a member of the special research area 148 ‘Fire behaviour of components’ and headed the sub-project ‘Calculation of fire-stressed components’.
In 1985, Mr Quast moved to the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, where he was appointed Professor of Solid Construction and headed the relevant department until his retirement in 2002. He was significantly involved in the development of structural engineering at the TUHH. Furthermore, he was very involved in various committees of the academic self-administration. For example, he was also Dean of the ‘Civil and Environmental Engineering’ department. Mr Quast was a valued colleague, as he could always be relied upon and openly expressed his opinion. He was very committed to improving teaching and the further development of the degree programme.
In his research, Mr Quast was mainly concerned with the design of slender reinforced and prestressed concrete columns and masts, in which the deformations of the component have an influence on the load-bearing capacity. To this end, he developed calculation programmes for the materially non-linear calculation of columns (including ABaS, MASQUE and INCA2), which are still used today in research, teaching and construction practice. His profound knowledge in this field made him a sought-after expert whose work was highly recognised in specialist circles. He contributed his high level of expertise to numerous national and international committees. The model support method developed by him and his colleagues is also included in the new European concrete standard. This demonstrates the sustainability and practical relevance of his research work. The latter was particularly close to his heart. More than one hundred publications on the design of reinforced concrete columns, the fire behaviour of components and the non-linear calculation of reinforced concrete structures as well as ten dissertations bear witness to this.
We will remember Prof Dr Ulrich Quast as a good colleague, committed scientist and teacher.
Günter A. Rombach and the Dean's Office for Civil and Environmental Engineering
