Max Mayer

Max Mayer (16 September 1886 in Salzburg – 29 July 1967 in Starnberg) was a German civil engineer.

Biography Mayer received his doctorate in 1913 from the Technical University of Munich (Economy as a Design principle in Reinforced Concrete Construction). From 1914 (during the WWI and the subsequent Weimar Republic) Mayer spoke and published on reforming construction in line with the scientific management ideas set out by the American mechanical engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor. From 1926 to 1930 he was a professor at the state building college in Weimar and then a consulting engineer in Munich.

With his book Die Sicherheit der Bauwerke (The Safety of Structures) from 1926, he was a pioneer of limit state design and hence the appropriate use of factors of safety. He also published a book on nomography for civil engineers, books for introduction in structural analysis and construction management.