Obituary of Prof. Peter Mayr
On October 20, 2021, the former director of the IWT, Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Peter Mayr, suddenly and unexpectedly passed away in his 83rd year. Prof. Mayr accompanied many IWT employees on their way, for many he was an important advisor and often also doctoral supervisor. All will remember his scientific achievements, his extraordinary commitment and his great services to the institute with honor.
After studying physics at the TH Stuttgart, writing his diploma thesis at the MPI Stuttgart, obtaining his doctorate and post-doctorate under Professor Eckard Macherauch at the TU Karlsruhe (now KIT), and conducting research in the field of the fatigue behavior of metallic materials, Mr. Mayr took over the management of the "Institut für Härterei-Technik" in Bremen in 1981 as successor to Prof. Otto Schaaber. In the following more than 20 years of his tenure, Mr. Mayr laid the foundations for today's Leibniz-IWT by reforming the institute, developing it further with great pioneering spirit and introducing subject-specific sections in the department of Materials Science.
Peter Mayr was appointed to the professorship of materials science in the Department of Production Engineering at the University of Bremen in 1983. Here he was involved with great commitment in the training of engineers since the opening of the department. He was particularly concerned with teaching fundamentals on a mechanism basis in order to strengthen the understanding of material reactions in the manufacturing process and in use and to enable meaningful application. In 1993, he was the first engineering science laureate of the Berninghausen Prize, which is awarded for excellent teaching and innovation at the University of Bremen.
Together with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus Bauckhage and Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. P. Günther Werner, the "Stiftung Institut für Härterei-Technik" was further developed in the mid-1980s into the "Stiftung Institute für Werkstofftechnik (IWT)" with the establishment of Manufacturing Technolgies and Process Engineering as independent main departments. Since 1986, Prof. Mayr has been the managing director of this expanded IWT as well as the head of the affiliated State Office for Building Materials Testing as the "Amtliche Materialprüfungsanstalt des Landes Bremen" (MPA). In 1990, the IWT moved from Bremen-Lesum to the new building on the university campus. The new building opened up additional possibilities, which were reflected in the addition of new tasks and the expansion of classical fields of work.
Thus, in 2000, Prof. Mayr's initiative gave rise to the Collaborative Research Center 570 "Distortion Engineering - Verzugsbeherrschung in der Fertigung ", the fifth SFB at the University of Bremen. One focus of the research activities within the Department of Materials Science remained the classical field of AWT, heat treatment. Here, it was possible to establish facilities that allow research and development work to be carried out in almost the entire field of heat treatment. The closely related field of surface technology was established and expanded during this time, so that it was possible to influence boundary layer areas from the nano to the millimeter range. In line with Prof. Mayr's earlier line of work, the department of Mechanical Properties was also established, which deals with the recording and prediction of the relationships between manufacturing and mechanical properties as well as the reliability of components. For a powerful analysis of material-technical work, it was also possible to establish the Metallographic Analysis and the Physical Analysis, which still exist in their structure today and are continuously developing in terms of content. The scope of the MPA was also expanded under his leadership to include the testing of metallic materials. In addition, the new fields of analytical microscopy of building materials and microbiology were established.
With admirable personal commitment, Mr. Mayr has also taken on tasks in collaborative research, convinced of its necessity and of its advantage for the scientific community: as an expert of the AIF, the AVIF, the Bavarian Research Foundation as well as the DFG, in the Scientific Council of the AIF and last but not least as chairman of the technical committees of the AWT, the indispensable basis for industrial collaborative research in the AWT. As a proven expert on the German research landscape, the Federal President appointed him to the Science Council in 1997 and confirmed the appointment for a second term in 2000.
From the very beginning, Prof. Mayr's duties also included serving as editor-in-chief of HTM - and he never regarded this task as a chore. He emphatically, passionately and also sufficiently persistently pursued his goal of maintaining and continuing the rank of HTM as one of the German-language technical-scientific journals of the professional community, whereby the wealth of results from his institute helped him to consolidate the international importance and attractiveness of HTM.
With his enthusiasm and great expertise, it was a skill of Mr. Mayr to motivate his staff, to recognize and constantly promote scientific achievements and commitment, which was extremely appreciated. Within his tenure, he was able to more than triple the number of employees.
These employees and the entire IWT now bid farewell to Prof. Mayr in high recognition of his work. Our sincere sympathy goes to his relatives and all those closely associated with him.
"Professor Mayr had a lasting influence on me and my career. And not only through the deep understanding of metallic materials as the basis of his lecture, which I was privileged to attend for the first time in September 1991, but also through his thoroughly upright manner." Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Brigitte Clausen
„Peter Mayr tremendously versatile effective and a very important hub of many activities and contacts far beyond the IWT. He was always full of ideas and projects, and his extensive expertise and great experience ensured that his advice and mediation of contacts were always helpful. People were also happy to seek them out, because of his affable and approachable personality and, not least, his sense of humor – which was Swabian "knitz".“ Dr. rer. nat. Dipl.-Ing. Stefan Hock
"Peter Mayr was an engineer in the sense of the word and his thinking was shaped by his physics studies. For him, it was important that his students and scientists knew the physical mechanisms of materials engineering in order to understand materials behavior, to be able to use materials in a targeted manner, to be able to develop new processes and to avoid materials failure." Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Franz Hoffmann
"For me, Prof. Mayr was not only an outstanding steel expert, I was much more fascinated by his abilities as a manager, motivator and entrepreneur. Without these qualities, he would never have achieved the transformation from the small IHT in Lesum to the internationally visible IWT on the campus of the University of Bremen. Above all, Mayr the entrepreneur has left his mark on me to this day and for that I am eternally grateful!" Dr. Frank Stahl
To the mourning page: trauer.weser-kurier.de/traueranzeige/prof-dr-peter-mayr/anzeigen