STUVA Employee Dr.-Ing. Friedrich Krüger Receives Rudolf Martin Certificate of Honour
The DIN/VDI Acoustics, Noise Abatement and Vibration Control Standards Committee (NALS) ) has awarded its long-standing member and STUVA employee Dr.-Ing. Friedrich Krüger the prestigious Rudolf Martin Certificate of Honour for his outstanding contribution to standardisation work. The award commemorates the founding chairman of the NALS, Prof Rudolf Martin. The ceremony took place during the 50th annual conference of the German Society for Acoustics in Hannover.
Dr.-Ing. Friedrich Krüger has dedicated his entire professional life to researching and combating health-threatening noise emissions. In particular, oscillations and vibrations caused by rail vehicles are his absolute speciality.
Born in 1944 in what is now Poland and raised in the Rhineland, Friedrich Krüger began his career with an apprenticeship as a metalworker at Bayer in Dormagen, completed a vocational school and studied mechanical engineering at the engineering school in Cologne and later at the Technical University of Berlin. After a traineeship at Deutsche Bahn in Nuremberg, Friedrich Krüger found his full-time professional home at the STUVA in 1979 and has remained loyal to the organisation to this day.
He has been head of the noise and vibration protection department there since 1985. In 1989 Krüger completed his doctorate on the subject of “Development of an admittance-oriented forecasting method for the immissions-optimised design of the track superstructure in the shell construction stage of tunnel sections”. He has researched every conceivable aspect of noise and vibration protection in rail transport and developed appropriate damping measures. He has spent many a night with his extensive range of measuring equipment on remote railway lines around the world, in all weathers, to gather the data he requires for his work.
Friedrich Krüger‘s involvement in standardisation began alongside his work at the STUVA. A standardisation application he submitted to DIN in 1984 led to the establishment of the standardisation committee “Vibration reduction in the vicinity of traffic facilities”. He was a founding member, at times deputy chairman, and is still an active member today. He was also temporary chairman of the committee on “Noise emission measurements on rail vehicles, including measurements in the passenger compartment and at the workplace” and is still active there today.
For decades, he was involved in the development of numerous DIN and ISO standards and played a key role in shaping the current regulations on noise protection. He was involved in the new edition of the three parts of DIN 4150 “Vibrations in construction” and contributed to the VDI guideline on the spectral prediction method for ground vibrations caused by rail-bound systems on slopes.
For the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV), he co-authored and updated VDV publication 154 “Noise from local public transport rail vehicles in accordance with BOStrab” and VDV publication 611 “Noise in track curves of rail-bound local public transport – practical recommendations for its prevention”. He is also the author of several specialist books and numerous other publications on noise protection. His expertise has been appreciated by the German Federal Railway Authority (Eisenbahnbundesamt), which officially recognised him as an expert in noise and vibration in 2005.
At the European level, Dr Krüger has been a permanent fixture for several decades now. As a member of the EU‘s WG 6 Railway Noise, he helped formulate the EU‘s basic position paper on limit value options and measurement methods for railway noise emissions and played a key role in shaping the directive on the calculation method for noise emissions and immissions along railway lines.
He has worked as a consultant on numerous rail projects around the world, including the Singapore Metro, the Guadalajara Light Rail in Mexico, and the high-speed rail and metro in Taiwan. Although Dr.-Ing. Friedrich Krüger turns 80 this year, his passion for research has not diminished. He is still actively involved in the DIN/VDI standardisation committees and is available at the STUVA as a project engineer for all questions relating to noise and vibration protection – because that is his vocation!
All employees of the STUVA are proud and congratulate their sound expert Dr.-Ing. Friedrich Krüger on his well-deserved high honour from the NALS!
The recently honoured award-winner is happy to pass on his colossal expertise to future generations of engineers, for example in October 2024 at the Technical Academy in Esslingen, where he has been leading seminars for years to introduce interested parties to the complex world of noise and vibration protection.
