Prof. em. Dr. Kalman Kovari

Kalman Kovári was Full Professor of Underground Construction, beginning in 1990. Previous to this he was given the title of Professor and he was head of the group for rock engineering and underground construction. He retired in October 2002.

Prof. Kovári was born in 1937 in Budapest, Hungary, and studied in the Department of Civil Engineering, ETH Zurich. Following a short period in industry he became assistant at the Chair of Applied Mechanics, ETH, where he did his doctoral thesis under Prof. Dr. H. Ziegler. In 1968 he joined the then-Institute of Highway, Railroad and Rock Engineering and worked on basic issues of the still-young science of rock mechanics, and on the scientific fundaments of tunnel engineering. These activities led to the development of a series of measuring instruments, computational procedures and experimental techniques. Regular consulting works for large-infrastructure projects in several countries, particularly in South America, contributed to Prof. Kovári-s large store of practical experience. In the last few years he has concentrated primarily on questions of mechanisms of rock pressure and on methods of subway construction.