ABSTRACT: Gerhart I. Schuëller was born in Salzburg, Austria. After having received his Diploma in Civil Engineering from the Technische Universität Graz in 1967 and his Ph.D. degree in Structural Engineering from Stanford University in 1970, he was Assistant Professor at the George Washington University (1970-1972), Washington D.C. and consequently Senior Lecturer at the Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany (1972-1981) where he received his habilitation degree in 1976. He then became Professor for Engineering Mechanics (1981-2010) at the Leopold-Franzens University in Innsbruck. He died in the year 2012 after unbroken continuous activities for science and research.

In Innsbruck Gerhart I. Schuëller established an internationally highly reputed research group dealing with computational structural mechanics and analysis and reliability of structures. A large number of scientific papers with approx. 50 different co-authors and approx. 1,000 citing scientists bear witness that Schuëller’s group was strongly and very successfully interacting with the international community.

He felt responsible for the scientific community, which is also reflected in his enthusiasm and energy for promoting the European Association of Structural Dynamics (EASD), one of the numerous activities which strongly benefited of his initiatives. He was founding member of the EASD and for three terms President, recognizing and fostering the growing importance of structural dynamics in many engineering fields. KEY WORDS: Computational Structural Mechanics; Analysis and Reliability of Structures

1 ORIGIN

Professor Dr.-Ing. habil. Dr.-Ing. E.h. Gerhart Iwo Schuëller Ph.D. was born on June 12 1942 in Salzburg, Austria and died on June 9 2012, just three days before his 70th birthday.

Figure 1: Salzburg, Austria, the birth-place of Gerhart I. Schuëller

Salzburg, the beautiful city at the border of the Alps, had a lifelong strong impact on Gerhart I. Schuëller. He loved the mountains, was an excellent hiker and skier and enjoyed – together with his wife Heidi Schuëller – the overwhelming unspoiled landscape of the mountains even in spite of his very

limited free time. The author remembers well when in November 2009 he brought a group of colleagues of the European Association of Structural Dynamics (EASD) up to the breathtaking Austrian mountains in Obergurgl, with a most inspiring combination of quite strong alpinism and hard working in a beautiful landscape and a great premise of the Leopold-Franzens University, Innsbruck, Austria. The author has learned, that he regularly organized such events, e.g. with our colleagues of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany in October 2000 in the Mieminger Mountains.

He also loved fine arts; certainly the origin of this enthusiasm is also based in Salzburg. The city regularly attracts top artists and music lovers from all over the world for the annual festivals and benefits from a very special flavor and atmosphere. The author also remembers well the wonderful and charming atmosphere in Innsbruck, organized by the Schuëllers, with a most impressive presentation of baroque music.

Salzburg and the challenges of the built environment in the Alps certainly also inspired him for his future professional career. His grandfather was a civil engineer, working for the famous Tauern Tunnel. It was possibly his grandfather who was the seed for his fascination regarding challenges linked with the built environment. Perhaps the impressive alpine areas with their visible risks and uncertainties inspired Gerhart I. Schuëller for his future focal points.

Gerhart I. Schuëller, an outstanding scientist with enthusiasm for the international scientific community

Gerhard Müller

Chair of Structural Mechanics, Technische Universität München, Arcisstr. 21, 80333 München, Germany email: gerhard.mueller@tum.de

Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Structural Dynamics, EURODYN 2014Porto, Portugal, 30 June - 2 July 2014

A. Cunha, E. Caetano, P. Ribeiro, G. Müller (eds.)ISSN: 2311-9020; ISBN: 978-972-752-165-4

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2 YOUNG RESEARCHER IN THE UNITED STATES

In the year 1967 Gerhart I. Schuëller graduated as Dipl.-Ing. at the Technische Universität Graz, Austria. During his last year of studies he was strongly motivated to find a way to go abroad. He underwent a series of tough tests in order to be accepted in Stanford, which was a great option for an enthusiastic future researcher. He first was granted a one year scholarship, and soon became a research assistant, until the year 1968 in the hydrodynamics laboratory.

There he worked together with Irmgard Flügge-Lotz, the first female engineering professor at Stanford and student of Ludwig Prandtl and Albert Betz and – by the way – wife of the famous Wilhelm Flügge. Until 1970 he worked in the Structural Division with William Weaver and George Herrmann, the founder of the International Journal of Solid and Structures. The work together with the supervisor of his thesis, Jack Benjamin, brought him to probabilistic concepts. Gerhart I. Schuëller recognized the potential of these methods for Civil Engineering.

Figure 2: Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA

Perhaps he already felt, that the engineering world had to

mature for a change of paradigm from deterministic to probabilistic approaches, an impression that later was a strong motivation for his research.

In 1970 he received his PhD degree with “Highest Distinction” from Stanford University. His PhD Thesis on the “Use of Stochastic Processes to Study Force Probability Density Functions on Ocean Structures” is a thorough piece of research at the intersection of hydromechanics, structural dynamics and stochastics.

In Stanford he met his wonderful wife Heidi, who from now on for his future life was his charming, understanding and supportive companion and partner. Heidi Schuëller was working there as a sports teacher. She had to stay one more year in California, when the famous Alfred Martin Freudenthal – who had established in 1968 in Washington

D.C. an important group dealing with stochastics – became aware of Gerhart I. Schuëller.

In the year 1970 Gerhart I. Schuëller – at the young age of 28 – became Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at the George Washington University, Washington D.C.. During the next years Freudenthal was his mentor and the exchange with this group certainly was very inspiring.

Figure 3: Washington D.C.

3 BACK TO EUROPE

Heidi Schuëller told me that in those days the Schuëllers had the feeling, that after 5 to 8 years abroad they should take an active decision whether to stay for a very long time or even forever or to move back to Europe, and there especially into the vicinity of their beloved Alps. Heidi and Gerhart I. Schuëller’s passion for skiing and hiking was so strong that they even took the long travel by car during the night from Stanford to the Yosemite Park in order to appreciate the wild landscapes of the mountains and to go skiing for a short weekend starting at Saturday morning.

Figure 4: View from the Technische Universität München, Germany – Gerhart and Heidi Schuëller get closer to the Alps

In 1972 he obtained a most interesting opportunity as Senior

Lecturer and Project Leader at the center of “Structural Reliability” at the Technische Universität München (TUM), Munich, Germany. Hubert Rüsch had initiated the DFG-Sonderforschungsbereich 96 “Structural Reliability” (SFB 96) a Special-Research-Division financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG), which in those days was under the guidance of Herbert Kupfer. In the SFB 96 a large group

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of scientists was joined together, working on reliability issues and provided an important breeding ground for future semiprobabilistic concepts to be found today in our current standards. A close cooperation with Wilfried Krätzig and the Ruhr-Universität Bochum was fostered by Gerhart I. Schuëller’s participation in the Bochum research program “Structures under Aerodynamic Loads”, also financed by the DFG.

In this time he cooperated with numerous further scientists, among others Folker Wittmann, Christian Petersen, Theodor Lehmann, Wolfgang Zerna and Horst Lippmann. In 1975 he established, together with Wittmann, a publication series on aeroelastic applications in civil engineering, which finally had a strong impact on the current standards that were established decades later.

In the year 1976 Gerhart I. Schuëller completed his habilitation thesis “Dr.-Ing. habil.” at TUM. His thesis deals with the safety of structures under wave-action. The work was supervised by Kupfer, Petersen and Freudenthal.

Already in the year 1977 Gerhart I. Schuëller became scientific secretary of the 2nd International Conference on Structural Safety and Reliability (ICOSSAR’77), co-sponsored by the DFG and the National Science Foundation (NSF). It was very sad, that Freudenthal died just prior to this important conference, where he certainly would have enjoyed the vivid success of his mentee.

In 1979 Gerhart I. Schuëller was founding chairman of the bi-annual SMIRT post-conference seminar series on “Reliability of Nuclear Power Plants”. Eight years later the format was supplemented by a series on “Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Nuclear Power Plants for External Events”. Furthermore he vividly was engaged in further conferences, e.g. in the year 1980 in the OECD-CSNI Conference on “Probabilistic Methods in Seismic Risk Assessment for Nuclear Power Plants” and in 1981 as co-chairman of the US/German/European Workshop in “Structural Risk Analysis” sponsored jointly by the DFG and the NSF.

Thus, already in the seventies, Gerhart I. Schuëller became not only perfectly embedded in the international scientific community dealing with stochastics and was an active partner in the research taking place in in Germany, but was a strong promoter for the international scientific exchange in his field.

4 BACK TO AUSTRIA

Figure 5: Leopold-Franzens University, Innsbruck, Austria [1] Gerhart and Heidi Schuëller get into the heart of the Alps

In the year 1981 Gerhart I. Schuëller was appointed as chair professor and director of the Institute of Engineering Mechanics at the Leopold-Franzens University of Innsbruck,

Austria. He finally came back into his home country and started to develop the institute into one of the most famous and leading centers for research in stochastic mechanics in the world.

He was an important partner for colleagues dealing with stochastics on an international scale. Thus he was member of the advisory board of the DFG-Sonderforschungsbereich 151 of the Ruhr-Universität, Bochum with the topic “Dynamics of Structures”.

In the next years he became editor and co-editor of various books starting in 1981 as author of a book on the “Introduction to Structural Safety and Reliability” that has been translated even into Japanese in 1984 (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Gerhart I. Schuëller: Introduction to Structural

Safety and Reliability (1981) [2]

From 1985 until 1990 Gerhart I. Schuëller was head of the research focus (FSP30) “Dynamic of Civil Structures”, funded by the Austria Science Fund (FWF), which was carried out in cooperation with the TU Vienna and the Montanuniversität Leoben.

His activities in structural dynamics led to numerous joint formats of exchange, as e.g. an “US-Austria joint Seminar on Stochastic Structural Mechanics” funded by the NSF and the FWF (1987), several joint seminars with the SFB 151 (DFG) and the FSP30 (FWF) alternating between Bochum, 1985 and 1987, and Innsbruck 1989. These seminars were the origin of the EURODYN-conferences, which first took place in Bochum in the year 1990.

In this time the focus of Gerhart I. Schuëller’s work shifted more and more from the linear stochastic theory of reliability towards nonlinear stochastic problems [3].

5 FOCUS OF RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

To the author’s understanding Gerhart I. Schuëller described as general goal of his research and his activities [4] to increase the acceptance of the methodologies of stochastic structural mechanics within the practicing engineering community in order to provide for humanity the possibility to benefit from the perspectives, that the currently extremely different precision requirements of the four core elements of engineering work as shown in Figure 7 (load analysis, material analysis, safety analysis and structural analysis) will be more and more balanced, for the sake of safety, optimal maintenance and life-cycle costs. He here referred to Alfred Freudenthal [5].

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This should be done by the development of computationally efficient simulation strategies, like e.g. Advanced Monte-Carlo methods, parallel processing and intelligent model reduction.

Completely coherent, this approach of his research was accompanied by the development of the general purpose software COSSAN-X (Computational Stochastic Structural Analysis) [6][7][8] making the developed methods available for the engineering practice.

He searched for fostering the applicability of the methodologies in context of large and complex systems [9][10][11] and for providing methods for the management of reliability and quality assurance, in order to increase the reliability and to decrease the production costs. Figure 8 shows a slide taken from the faculty’s evaluation [4] where he presented his philosophy.

Figure 7: Four elements of engineering activities with

extremely different precision requirements [4][5]

Figure 8: Tasks and philosophy [4]

Gerhart I. Schuëller’s interests in stochastic methods, in structural and engineering mechanics, specifically mathematical modelling of load and material properties, structural reliability, reliability of mechanical components, probabilistic fatigue, fracture, and dynamic analysis, and its application in space, aeronautical, wind, earthquake, ocean, nuclear, and mechanical engineering flourished and produced more than 475 papers published in various scientific journals and conference proceedings and more than 70 technical reports.

6 SERVICE FOR THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY

Gerhart I. Schuëller was continuously very active in the scientific community. He deeply felt responsible for the scientific communication (Figure 9 from [4]).

Since his start at the University in Innsbruck he had continuously contributed to the ICOSSAR-conferences either

in the scientific committees or as co-chairman. In 1993 the conference took place in Innsbruck. He (co-)organized numerous further scientific exchanges, e.g. the RILEM (Reunion Internationale des Laboratoires d'Essais et de Recherches sur les Materiaux et les Constructions) symposium on “Stochastic Methods and Materials” (1986), the IUTAM symposium on “Nonlinear Stochastic Dynamic Systems” (1987), the EUROMECH Colloquium on “Methods for Nonlinear Stochastic Structural Dynamics” (1995), the “European Conference on Safety and Reliability” (ESREL 1999), the “International Conference on Monte Carlo Simulations” (of course taking place in Monte Carlo, 2000), and played a key role in the EURODYN-conferences (Trondheim 1993, München 2002, Paris 2005, Southampton 2008 and Leuven 2011).

Figure 9: Philosophy regarding the international presence

and service for the scientific community [4]

In 1987 he was founding member of the “Windtechnologische Gesellschaft” (WTG), in which he soon encouraged installing technical committees. Together with Hans-Jürgen Niemann he – very actively – chaired the committee for aerodynamics of buildings.

In Bavaria we are especially grateful, that Gerhart I. Schuëller, together with Horst Lippmann and further colleagues, initiated the Bayerisch-Tirolerisches-Mechanik-Kolloquium, starting in the year 1991, which up to now took place 40 times and became an established fruitful format of informal exchange between young researchers at the research institutions dealing with mechanics in Bavaria and Austria. In 2009 he celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Institute of engineering Mechanics in Innsbruck [1] in the scope of this conference.

In addition, Gerhart I. Schuëller was frequently invited to give plenary and semiplenary keynote lectures and to organize mini-symposia on stochastic mechanics as part of important international conferences. The list would be by far too large to be given in the scope of this review.

From 1998 to 2001 he was invited as part time Guest Professor at the Aerospace Department at the TU Delft and had further guest professorships at the University of Tokyo, Japan, the Tongji University, China, the Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, and was awarded the Charles E. Schmidt Distinguished Visiting Professor, Florida Atlantic University, USA.

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As President (1989 to 1993) respectively Executive Vice President (1999 to 2001) of IASSAR (International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability) and of EASD (European Association for Structural Dynamics) (1999 to 2005 respectively 2008 to 2012), he considerably shaped the scientific exchange in these fields.

On top of that he served in the Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mechanik und Mathematik (GAMM), as a member of the Executive Board (2009 to 2011) and in the European Safety and Reliability Association (ESRA) as Chairman of the Austrian Chapter (ESRA-A) (since 1994), as well as the ESRA Management Board (1998 to 2004).

Several international universities or faculties appointed him for their advisory boards or external evaluation committees, e.g. the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Worcester Polytechnical Institute Mass., USA, (1996 to 2000), the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, North Carolina State University, USA (2001 to 2003), the School of Engineering of the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis, Obispo, USA, the Faculty of Engineering of the Kagawa University, Takamatsu, (2002 to 2005), Japan.

Gerhart I. Schuëller always was member of the Editorial Boards of a large number of Scientific Journals in his field, as (in different periods) e.g. the Archive of Applied Mechanics, Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, Computers and Structures, Engineering Structures, European Journal of Earthquake Engineering, European Journal of Mechanics - A/Solids, Journal of Engineering Mechanics, Journal of Material and Structures, Journal of Nonlinear Mechanics, Journal of Structural Engineering and Mechanics, Journal of Structural Safety, Journal of Temporal Design in Architecture, Nuclear Engineering and Design, Probabilistic Engineering Mechanics, Reliability Engineering and System Safety and Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering.

In the year 2012 he was member of the Editorial board of 15 international journals.

And as if these activities still were not enough, he organized a large number of education courses, e.g. at the International Center for Mechanical Science (CISM) in Udine, Italy (1985), the German Technical Center, Essen, Germany (1977), the VDI-Munich (1979, 1980) and the at ZACE-Services, Lausanne, Switzerland (1985, 1986, 1988). He also gave courses in Japan (1982), Australia (1983), China (1983), Thailand, (1986, 1987), Brazil (1992), Austria (1993), The Netherlands (1999), Germany (2000), Belgium (2002, 2008).

After this long and still incomplete list the reader – and the author – definitely have to stop for a breath, summarizing that Gerhart I. Schuëller was not only very active but clearly had an excellent time management, accompanied by strong enthusiasm and discipline. He felt very responsible in his duties and was very much supported by his wife Heidi. Otherwise this engagement for the scientific community wouldn’t have been possible.

Even more surprising – being in regular contact with him on an e-mail basis – one couldn´t understand, how he managed to combine all his duties, fulfilling them with excellent quality and still responding with very little time gaps.

7 TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE INTO PRACTICE

Gerhart I. Schuëller was not only a person for theory. He supported the knowledge transfer to industry, by the above mentioned software development COSSAN-X, initially supported with seed-money coming from a translational research project (FWF). This general purpose software tool [7] currently is further developed and designed to close the gap between advanced research and industrial applications.

Gerhart I. Schuëller also participated in a large number of challenging industrial research projects. In his applied research he worked with several industrial partners in direct cooperation, proving that Optimal Maintenance Scheduling, Reliability Based Optimization (RBO) and the reliability assessment of systems and its mechanical components was no longer subject of just academic research but provided methodologies ready to be applied in industry – ranging from Civil Engineering to Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace. There he focused as well on a material level (e.g. multiphase material with random properties, like fiber-reinforced composite material) as well on a system level (e.g. reliability of drillers and cutters, cranes, earthquake simulation for power plants, crash simulation for cars based on Monte Carlo Methods).

Since 1995 he was Prime Contractor of the European Space Agency (ESA). The investigations for the coupled satellite-launcher (Ariane 5 launcher rocket) combined basic research with applied research at a system with 40.000 degrees of freedom and 8.000 random variables and an integrated satellite with 120.000 degrees of freedom and 1.300 random variables [1][12]. The project required an intelligent parallel architecture established by the Institute for Mechanics and the Union of the Computational Resources of the Austrian Universities, the Austrian Academy of Science and of the Risk Software GmbH [1].

For this work he was honored with the France-Prize of the University of Innsbruck in the year of 2006.

He became a member of the international CERRAM-Group (Consulting Engineers for Reliability and Risk Assessment and Management), where he provided consulting services to major European engineering companies and gave numerous invited lectures also in industry on all continents.

Gerhart I. Schuëller significantly supplemented the transfer of knowledge into practice – in addition to projects for industry and to COSSAN-X – by his contributions and initiatives regarding task forces and committees for standards, resulting in a further breathtaking und incomplete list, e.g. in the IABSE - Task Force on “Probabilistic Methods in Structural and Construction Engineering” (1976 to 1981), the OECD-CSNI - Task Force on “Rare Events in the Reliability of Nuclear Reactor Installations” (1976 to 1980), the IABSE-ASCE joint committee on “Tall Buildings” (starting in 1974), the FN-Bau (German Code Association) "Windloads" (DIN 1055/4) (starting in 1974), the DMV (German Association for Material Testing), task group on “Probabilistic Fracture Mechanics” (starting in 1980), the USNRC study committee “Nuclear Power Plant Structural Loads, Advisory Group” (starting in 1981), the ASCE committee on “Probabilistic Methods” (1981 to 2010 with interruptions), the KTA - Code Committee 2203 "Protection of Nuclear Power Plants against Aircraft Impact and External Explosions" (starting in 1980),

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the IABSE -working commission I, “Structural Performance, Safety and Analysis” (1981 to 1990), the JCSS – “Joint Committee on Structural Safety” (1987 to 1994), the GAMM technical committees on “Stochastic Optimization” (starting in 1994) and on “Mechanics of Nonlinear Dynamics” (1994 to 2002), the SAE International RMS Committee on “Probabilistic Methods” (starting in 1994), the SAE International RMS Subcommittee on “Design” (starting in 1995), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) WTG-NDA Committee (starting in 1999).

He furthermore served as a Member of the Austrian State Delegation to investigate the safety of the Czech nuclear power plant in Temelin, (2002 to 2004).

He was founding chairman of numerous committees, like e.g. the IASSAR committee on “Stochastic Methods in Structural Engineering” (1987 to 1989) the VDI-GIS - committee on the “Reliability of Mechanical Components” (1987 to 1999), the ESRA - committee on the “Reliability of Mechanical Components” (starting in 1992), the IASSAR Committee on “Stochastic Methods in Structural Engineering” (1987 - 1989), the RILEM - Task Committee on “Stochastic Methods in Materials and Structural Engineering” (1982 to 1986), the ÖNORM (Austrian Code Committee) working group “Safety Concepts for Civil Engineering Structures” (1982 to 1989), and chairman of the IASSAR subcommittee on “Computational Stochastic Structural Mechanics” (1989 to 2002).

8 HONORS

The impact on science and society of Gerhart I. Schuëller and his group was visible, which was also important for the visibility of stochastic dynamics.

Figure 10: Award Ceremony Max-Planck-Research Awards for Claudio Borri, Winfried Krätzig and Gerhart I. Schuëller,

handed over by Prof. Staab, 1994 (courtesy of Dietrich Hartmann)

The visibility is proved by a whole series of awards (in

addition to those mentioned previously), like the Medaglia Gian Galeazzo Visconti of the University of Pavia in 1985, the Science Award of the State Government of Tyrol in 1988, and the Oskar-Vas-Price of the Austrian Standards Institute in 1989. He became a Corresponding Member of National Academy of Engineering of Argentina in 1993, and obtained the Max-Planck-Research Prize in 1994 (see Figure 10) for

the international cooperation in research fields that are especially promising for the future.

These prestigious recognitions were topped by the Freudenthal Ring in Gold from the International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability in the year 1997. In 2011 he obtained the EASD Prize of the European Association for Structural Dynamics for his outstanding scientific life’s work.

A particular honor was the Honorary Doctorate Dr.-Ing. E. h. of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in 2008. Dietrich Hartmann stated in his laudation that Gerhart I. Schuëller was a key promoter, moving from deterministic approaches for the calculation in structural mechanics to stochastic approaches.

9 A GREAT PERSON, SCIENTIST AND COLLEAGUE

Gerhart I. Schuëller was an excellent and supportive partner, and a very frank and open person.

Many of us, who started in research one or two decades later, still strongly remember the feeling, having Gerhart I. Schuëller in the auditorium during the presentation of the own research. Most of us consider the handling of the inevitably arising, politely but also persistently asked questions, respectively remarks, linked with scientific discussions – that sometimes were just brought to an end due to the grace and the pity of the session chairman – as a significant part of the scientific maturation process. However, this feeling encouraged generations of young researchers to thoroughly think through their work properly. Thus – like a good teacher – Gerhart I. Schuëller had a “hidden” and an official mission. His strong and enthusiastic presence at conferences led to a considerable unofficial and effective “hidden” impact on science and research, apart from his strong “official impact”, which is reflected in his engagement but also in highly cited overview papers that he regularly published in order to describe the current state of research (e.g. [13][14][15][16]) and in the fact that he was “on board” in numerous benchmarks (e.g. [17][11][18][19][20]) within the scientific community.

Under his guidance the profile of many conferences and workshops and among them especially the EURODYN conferences has been shaped.

His personality and his impact will remain not only in our memory but also is materialized in strong formats of scientific

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communication, norms and standards, in numerous important publications, in strong and well established traces, based on which future researchers and practical engineers can continue with their work.

He was a promoter of a change of paradigm from deterministic to stochastic approaches in engineering sciences. Blessed with intelligence, enthusiasm and extremely quick perception and apprehension, highly gifted with power and diligence, he optimally used his skills for the benefit of science and practice in engineering and thus for the benefit of our societies, that invest an important part of their value creation and energy on sophisticated systems and optimized infrastructures. He significantly contributed to a better and more intelligent balance between load analysis, material analysis, safety analysis and structural analysis, which is a key goal for mankind.

All his activities would not have been possible without his enormous discipline, tenacity, endurance and rigor against himself, and not at all without the support given by his wife Heidi.

Many colleagues – including the author – were very surprised to hear that already at our last EURODYN conference in Leuven 2011, he severely fought against his insidious disease without us being aware of it, a fight that just one year later he could not win.

The overwhelming, amicable, admiring and warm-hearted reactions and sharing of memories of friends, co-scientists, colleagues, students and mentees after his death, expressed in post-messages of condolences, are an impressive testimony of his far-reaching and positive impact, his support, initiative, his presence, his actions and his personality [21].

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author is very grateful to Heidi Schuëller, and Gerhart I. Schuëller’s former students and his colleagues Michael Beer, Matteo Broggi, Dietrich Hartmann, Edoardo Patelli, Helmuth Pradlwarter, for the very valuable exchange of memory and the most valuable and impressive material.

REFERENCES [1] G. I. Schuëller, 40 Jahre Institut für Mechanik, 37. Bayerisch-

Tirolerisches Mechanik Kolloquium, Innsbruck, 2009. [2] G. I. Schuëller, Introduction to Structural Safety and Reliability,

Wilhelm Ernst und Sohn, Berlin München, 1981. [3] G. I. Schuëller, R. Stix, A Critical Appraisal of Methods to Determine

Failure Probabilities, Journal of Structural Safety 4, 293-309, Elsevier, Netherland, 1987.

[4] G. I. Schuëller, Unit of Engineering Mechanics (IfM) (formerly Institute of Engineering Mechanics), Presentation in the scope of the Department’s evaluation Innsbruck, 2010.

[5] A. M. Freudenthal, Die Sicherheit der Baukonstruktionen, Acta Technica; Hungaria (46), 1964, pp. 417 – 446.

[6] C.G. Bucher, G. I. Schuëller, Software for reliability-based analysis, Journal of Structural Safety, 16:13–22, 1994.

[7] www.cossan.co.uk. [8] M. De Angelis, E. Patelli, M. Beer, Dealing with scarce information on

engineering systems, ECCOMAS 2012, 6th European Congress on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences and Engineering, Vienna, Austria, 2012.

[9] G. I. Schuëller, H.J. Pradlwarter, P.S. Koutsourelakis, A critical appraisal of reliability estimation procedures for high dimensions, Journal of Probabilistic Engineering Mechanics 19, 463–474, Elsevier, 2004.

[10] G.I. Schuëller (Ed.)., Reliability Estimation in Higher Dimensions of Structural Systems, Journal of Structural Safety - Special Issue, 29, 165-252, 2007.

[11] G. I. Schuëller, H. J. Pradlwarter, J.L. Beck, S.K. Au, L.S. Katafygiotis and R. Ghanem, Benchmark Study on Reliability Estimation in Higher Dimensions of Structural Systems - An Overview, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Structural Dynamics (EURODYN 2005), C. Soize et al. (Ed.) Millpress, Rotterdam 717-722, 2005.

[12] M. F. Pellissetti, S. Fransen, H. J. Pradlwarter, A. Calvi, A. Kreis, G. I. . Schuëller, M. Klein, Stochastic launcher-satellite coupled dynamic analysis, Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, 43(6):1308–1318, 2006.

[13] E. Vanmarcke, M. Shinozuka, S. Nakagiri, G. I. Schuëller, M. Grigoriu, Random Fields and Stochastic Finite Elements, Journal of Structural Safety 3, 143-166, Elsevier, 1986.

[14] G. I. Schuëller, On Computational Prcedures for Processing, ECCM-2001, European Conference on Computational Mechanics, Institute of Engineering Mechanics, Leopold-Franzens University, Innsbruck, Austria, 2001.

[15] G. I. Schuëller, H.A. Jensen, Computational methods in optimization considering uncertainties – An overview, Journal Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engineering, 198, 2–13, Elsevier, 2008.

[16] G. I. Schuëller, Reliability Based Optimization: An Overview and Applications in Lifetime Oriented Design, Institute of Engineering Mechanics, Leopold-Franzens University, Innsbruck, Austria, GIS Singapore, 2010.

[17] M.J. Grimmelt and G. I. Schuëller, Benchmark study on methods to determine collapse failure propabilities of redundant structures. LKI-Berichte Heft Nr.51, 43 S., Technische Universität München, 1981.

[18] G. I. Schuëller, H. J. Pradlwarter, M. Vasta, and N. Harnpornchai, Benchmark-study on nonlinear stochastic structural dynamics, In N. Shiraishi, M Shinozuka, and Y.K. Wen, editors, Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Structural Safety and Reliability (ICOSSAR’ 97), pages 355 –361. A.A. Balkema Publications, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, November, 1998.

[19] H.J. Pradlwarter , G.I. Schuëller, P.S. Koutsourelakis, D.C. Charmpis, Application of line sampling simulation method to reliability benchmark problems, Journal of Structural Safety 29, 208–221, Elsevier, 2007.

[20] G. I. Schuëller, H. J. Pradlwarter, Benchmark study on reliability estimation in higher dimensions of structural systems - an overview, Structural Safety, 29(3):167–182, 2007.

[21] http://www.cossan.co.uk/tools/comments/schueller_inMemoriam.php.

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