Josef Kozeny

Josef Alexander Kozeny (February 25, 1889 – April 19, 1967) was an Austrian hydraulic engineer and physicist. Today he is mainly remembered for the Kozeny–Carman equation which describes fluid flowing through a packed bed of solids.

Education

Born in Josefstadt, Bohemia, Kozeny moved to Prague to study at the German Technical University. He later moved to Vienna to study at the University of Agricultural Sciences.

Career

In 1922, he was appointed professor at the University of Tartu in Estonia. In 1924, he became a professor at the University of Agricultural Sciences in Vienna and remained there for the rest of his career. In 1940, he was appointed Professor of Hydraulics and Hydraulic Engineering and he was designated Professor Emeritus in 1959.

He became a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1958 and received an honorary doctorate in 1965.

Kozeny published a textbook, “Hydraulics”, in 1953, a book which became a standard in the field. He was best known for his contribution to the Kozeny-Carman equation. Used to calculate the flow of a liquid through a packed bed of solids, the equation was first proposed by Kozeny in 1927 and later modified by Philip Carman.