Abstract
Professor Gerhard Jangg, a pioneer of powder metallurgy and dispersion-strengthened materials and an eminent figure in Austrian materials science, passed away on 29 November 2023, at the age of 96.
He was born in Villach, Carinthia, on 27 September 1927. As with many of his age, his schooltime ended prematurely in 1944 with an emergency graduation (‘Notmatura’), after which he was immediately drafted into the German Army, to serve in Italy. He became an American prisoner of war in 1945 and was interned near Nuremberg. After his release in 1946, he studied Technical Chemistry at ‘Technische Hochschule Wien’ (as TU Wien was called at that time) and earned his Dr.techn. with a thesis on the viscosity of glass melts. Subsequently, he worked as an assistant scientist, doing research on ore processing and in particular amalgam metallurgy, ‘at a time when mercury was not yet as toxic as today’, as he later used to remark jokingly. In 1965 he obtained the venia docendi for ‘Chemical Technology of Metals’, and in 1971 he was appointed Associate Professor and head of the Powder Metallurgy division at the Institute for Chemical Technology of Inorganic Materials, which post he held until his retirement at the end of 1992.
When Richard Kieffer, previously a leading manager at Plansee, was appointed Full Professor at the institute in 1964, he introduced powder metallurgy as the main research focus, and this became the principal interest also for Gerhard Jangg, being ‘infected with the disease of sinteritis’, as he used to say. While Richard Kieffer, together with his coworker Peter Ettmayer, worked mainly on hard metals and cermets, Gerhard Jangg chose ferrous powder metallurgy to work at, from soft magnetic materials to high strength and wear-resistant steels. This resulted in a cooperation of the institute with Miba Sintermetall AG – now Miba Sinter Austria GmbH – which has continued until today, for more than 50 years. A further area of research was dispersion-strengthened materials, Cu–Al2O3 and especially carbide-reinforced aluminium Al–Al4C3, which Gerhard Jangg invented and for which he developed the technique of reaction milling. Subsequently, he worked on oxide dispersion-strengthened superalloys and dispersion-strengthened platinum group metals for extreme thermal and chemical environments. All these projects were performed in close cooperation with industrial partners from Austria and abroad. Gerhard Jangg was particularly sensitive to the needs of the industry and also told his students ‘Learn to think with the brains of the industry’. Logically, many of his graduates later on successfully held positions in the industry.
Gerhard Jangg was also an excellent academic teacher who was able to fascinate his students with materials science and in particular powder metallurgy. He was a gifted writer who taught his students how to write their theses and publications clearly and precisely. He told us that ‘a thesis must be as thrilling as a detective story’. Still today, his publications and books are a pleasure to read. When discussing scientific findings, Gerhard was a critical and outspoken partner, who however tolerated and even enjoyed being equally countered with convincing arguments. He was also a boss who could be relied on in any difficulty that his students might encounter; he took particular care in obtaining funding for his PhD candidates, which was not standard at that time.
One of his main interests was establishing and maintaining close contacts with the powder metallurgists from the Eastern Bloc countries, in particular the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. Werner Schatt from Dresden, Andrej Šalak, at that time from Žilina, Milan Šlesar from Košice, Michail Karpov from Chernogolovka and Evgenij Shalunov from Cheboksary were among his partners for whom he arranged travels to Vienna and whom he frequently visited at their institutes, despite the bureaucratic problems usually linked to such arrangements. He was also a regular delegate at the powder metallurgy congresses in the GDR, ČSSR, Poland and Bulgaria. Gerhard felt obliged to help these colleagues, who did excellent scientific work under conditions we can hardly imagine today, but for whom contacts to Western institutions could be a crucial asset. Gerhard's tenacity paid off after the fall of the Iron Curtain, since many cooperations and friendships from these times still hold today. Gerhard Jangg also readily accepted foreign students as PhD candidates. The home countries of his students range from Manchuria to Patagonia, and particularly many came from Middle East countries. All of them rewarded him with engaged scientific work and a lasting gratitude.
Our sympathy goes to his wife Elisabeth, his daughter Edith, his five grandchildren – among them four children of his late daughter Brigitte – and three great-grandchildren. All those who had the privilege to know Gerhard Jangg and especially to work with him will hold a lasting memory for this eminent powder metallurgist and academic teacher.