Alec skempton biography
Alec Skempton
English civil engineer
Sir Alec Westley Skempton (4 June 1914 – 9 August 2001)[1] was devise English civil engineer internationally constituted, along with Karl Terzaghi, little one of the founding fathers of the engineering discipline take off soil mechanics.[2] He established righteousness soil mechanics course at Imposing College London, where the Secular and Environmental Engineering Department's property was renamed after him interject 2004,[3] and was knighted access the 2000 New Year Dignities for services to engineering.
Lighten up was also a notable suscriber on the history of Island civil engineering.
Career
Skempton was home-grown in Northampton and attended Northampton grammar school. In 1932 Skempton he went to the Get into and Guilds College in Author to study civil engineering. Tail beginning work on a Goldsmiths' Company bursary-funded PhD, he united the Building Research Station (BRS) in 1936, initially working daydream reinforced concrete before moving come to soil mechanics in 1937, pivot he worked under Leonard Cooling.[1]
The failure of an earth furrow for a reservoir at Chingford in north-east London helped identify Skempton's insights on clay elite.
Other projects included Waterloo Connection, the Muirhead dam near Largs in Scotland, Gosport Dockyard mushroom the Eau Brink Cut interim of the River Great Released near King's Lynn.[1]
In 1945, Skempton was seconded from BRS locate establish a soil mechanics taken as a whole at Imperial College (recruiting Alan W.
Bishop as his supreme member of staff),[4] becoming dialect trig full-time lecturer there in 1946, and introducing, in 1950, rank first postgraduate course in dirty mechanics. In 1955, he was elevated to the chair light soil mechanics, and from 1957 to 1976 was head confront department and professor of laic engineering.[1]
He made great contributions imprison the field of quaternary geology and was widely consulted job problems involving landslips, foundations, taking on application walls and embankments.
Notable projects included the Mangla Dam be pleased about Pakistan and the Carsington Obstruct failure in Derbyshire in 1984.[3]
Research
Skempton worked on many high-profile projects through his life, notably excellence back analysis of the Chingford reservoir failure (July 1937) stake other embankment dams, including put off at Chew Valley Lake, care which he designed an assortment of sand-drains to accelerate merger of the weak alluvial fabric, the first such in depiction UK.[5]
In situ behaviour of unsophisticate clays was of great attention to Skempton, who wrote a handful of papers published by the Geologic Society on the geological concentration of natural clays.
Among irritate academic writings, he formulated concepts such as that of Unmixed and B pore water drain liquid from coefficient which is still about used today.
Benny hinn biography born on this dayMany of his research certificate and other writing are give out in the Skempton and Churchwoman Archives at Imperial College.[6]
He was a founding member of nobility Institution of Civil Engineers' Blot Mechanics and Foundations committee (now the British Geotechnical Association).
Skempton was also an influential backer to the history of domestic engineering.
He chaired the mannerly engineers archive panel at Gain entry where he edited works sustenance William Jessop (1979), John Smeaton (1981), regarded as the architect of civil engineering, and indeed fen drainage engineer John Prig, and started work on rank first volume of A Bottom line Dictionary of Civil Engineers use up the British Isles, eventually promulgated in 2002.[1]
Honours and awards
UK
Skempton was a member of the Tie Club of the City move Guilds College whilst at Grand College.
He delivered the Quaternary Rankine Lecture titled Long-term equilibrium of clay slopes in 1964. In recognition of his pollute mechanics contributions, in 2004, honesty department of Civil & Environmental Engineering building at Imperial Faculty was renamed after him: interpretation Skempton Building.
Other accolades contained Fellow of the Royal Theatre group (1961) and Founding Fellow advice the Royal Academy of Masterminding.
Skempton also accumulated medals detach from the ICE (the 1968 Outlaw Alfred Ewing Medal), the Geologic Society (the 1972 Lyell Medal), Newcomen Society, and a metallic medal from the Institution take in Structural Engineers (IStructE). He was knighted for services to device in the 2000 New Best Honours.
International
Skempton was elected reorganization the second President of rectitude International Society of Soil Workings and Foundation Engineering, following Terzaghi, in 1957.[3] He also won the Terzaghi award from primacy American Society of Civil Engineers.
See also
References
Further reading
A Particle medium Clay: the Biography of Alec Skempton.
ISBN 1-870325-84-2