Category Archives: Terzaghi & History

DBA News, Drilled Piles, Drilled Shafts, Miscellaneous, Site updates, Terzaghi & History

Audubon (JJA) Bridge Construction Update

I have been too busy to post more photos from my trips to New Roads, LA in the fall to help Steve with the work at the Audubon Bridge project.  It has been a flurry of activity as they worked to finish installing, tip-routing, and load testing all of the shafts in the river (done in December!).   They have also completed and tested the land test shaft on the west side of the river and begun installing the land shafts.  Throw in a lot of pile driving, including some 5-foot diameter pipe piles for temporary bents, and it has been a very busy site.  All of the various tip-grouting, O-cell load tests on drilled shafts, and PDA testing of the pre-cast piles has been successful.  As of today, the Mississippi River has come up and slowed things down a bit, but they should get all of the foundation completed within the next couple of months. 

Some pictures I took on some of my trips are setup below.  I have also experimented with embedding some video I took with my camera.  The camera was not set on a very high video capture resolution, but I think they are good enough for you to get the idea of the shaft excavation and the pile driving activities.

More pictures here.

Previous posts here.

 

East Pier Construction – September 2008:

 

East Temporary Bent Pile Driving – September 2008:

 

West Side Construction and Other Stuff – October 2008:

 

 

Excavating Shaft 5E with airlift.

 

 

Driving 5′ dia. pipe pile for East Temprary Bent

 

Extracting casing at Shaft 21W
Miscellaneous, Terzaghi & History

Professor Ralph Peck Legacy Website at Geoengineer.org

The folks at Geoengineer.org are developing a website to honor the legacy of Professor Ralph B. Peck who passed away earlier this year. The development team is offering an invitation for contributions:

To honor a distinguished geotechnical engineer, for his dedication and contributions to the society as a teacher, author, and engineer, we invite his friends, students and colleagues to send us any material relevant for inclusion in this website. Photos, videos, notes, or other material of historical value is more than welcome. Your contribution to this effort is vital and will be acknowledged.

The team behind the website includes:

The website is being developed in collaboration with Mrs. Nancy Peck-Young, Prof. Peck’s daughter and is supervised by an international Advisory Committee of distinguished members of the engineering community that have worked closely with Prof. Peck. The Advisory Committee presently consists of:

  • Professor Ricardo Dobry, Professor, RPI.
  • Dr. Suzanne Lacasse, Director, Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI)
  • Prof. Shamsher Prakash, Emeritus Professor, University of Missouri-Rolla
  • Prof. Edward Cording, Emeritus Professor, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

More information can be found at the Geoengineer.org website here.

Terzaghi & History

Happy Karl Terzaghi’s Birthday!!!

Karl von Terzaghi (October 2, 1883 – October 25, 1963)


terzaghi.jpg

Photograph From the World Wide Web of Geotechnical Engineering Hall of Fame (http://www.ejge.com/People/Terzaghi/Terzaghi.htm)

Good day and Happy Karl Terzaghi’s Birthday! Today is a celebrated day on the geotechnical calendar each and every year, and this year is special as it is the 125th year since the birth of the Father of Modern Soil Mechanics. For those of you that this is the first year you have received this message, let me welcome you to my annual tribute to Professor Terzaghi and the geotechnical engineering profession. (If you do not want this annual greeting, please let me know and I will drop you from my list!).

This year I am writing from a hotel room in Baton Rouge, Louisiana preparing to be on a bridge site in the morning to observe an O-cell load test. I wish I could say I spent some time perusing Professor Terzaghi’s biography: “Karl Terzaghi – The Engineer as Artist” by Richard E. Goodman in order to prepare something that reflects on some event or achievement of Professor Terzaghi. Alas the last two weeks have been terribly busy with trips back and forth between Alabama and Louisiana, long days on the project site, and staying on top of everything else as usual.

Therefore, I will keep this post brief and encourage you to celebrate today wherever work finds you today. Every day is a great day to be a geotechnical engineer, foundation contractor, professor, sales engineer, or other part of the geo-industry. Go out and have fun today, and make sure and remind everyone in your office, etc. that today is Karl Terzaghi’s Birthday!

DBA News, Terzaghi & History

Happy Karl Terzaghi’s Birthday!!!

Karl von Terzaghi (October 2, 1883 – October 25, 1963)

terzaghi.jpg

Photograph From the World Wide Web of Geotechnical Engineering Hall of Fame (http://www.ejge.com/People/Terzaghi/Terzaghi.htm)

Yes, my friends, another year has passed and it is once again that joyous day amongst geotechnical engineers and the geo-industry…Karl Terzaghi’s Birthday! Today marks the 124th year since the birth of the Father of Modern Soil Mechanics. As I pondered what to say today to mark the occasion, I pulled my copy of “Karl Terzaghi – The Engineer as Artist” by Richard E. Goodman off my shelf for inspiration.

As I flipped through the pages covering Professor Terzaghi’s early life, I found the section on his service in WWI. Since we are at war, and as a veteran U.S. Army Combat Engineer (Essayons!), I felt it appropriate to highlight Professor Terzaghi’s service as an engineer in the Austrian Army. He received a commission as Oberleutnant and was placed in charge of a 250-man engineer brigade, one of four within a “Land Storm” battalion. He quickly took the reigns of leadership and organized his men into a disciplined and effective unit, so well, in fact, that he was made Land Storm Commander in charge of the entire 1,000 man battalion. While on the Serbian front, he was tested as a designer and builder of trenches, works, and fortifications due to the soft soils and high groundwater conditions. After a time in
Serbia

, he was reassigned to manage an airfield where he completed his military service.

So today, as you raise your mug, glass, bottle, or can to toast Professor Terzaghi the Engineer, remember that he also took the path of countless others in honorable service to their country. (And, as we are honoring Professor Terzaghi, we will not today entertain discussions or debates of the geo-political events of his day, including the many causes of WWI and the side on which
Austria

was involved).

Some links of interest for you today: a list of Terzaghi quotes , a post about his honorary doctorate at the Instanbul Technical University, advice from Professor Terzaghi, and the World Wide Web of Geotechnical Engineering Hall of Fame,

I hope you enjoy the rest of your day working in the greatest and most fun field in civil engineering. Just think, you get to be a geotechnical engineer (or geo-professional)!!!!!!!!

Robert


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Terzaghi & History

Happy Karl Terzaghi’s Birthday!

Today marks the 123rd year since the birth of the Father of Modern Soil Mechanics, the Sultan of Soils, an Engineer’s Engineer: Karl Terzaghi! So let us raise our coffee mugs (or whatever vessel contains your morning beverage of choice) this morning in honor of the man that helped define what we do as a field unto itself in civil engineering. Later this evening, after you have spent another great day as a geotechnical engineer teaching students, visiting a site to observe or test foundation construction, performing settlement analysis, telling that architect yet again why he can’t use shallow foundations for his 10-story building like he planned, working like crazy to finish that bid on a complex _____ (pile, shaft, soil nail, etc.) installation, or figuring out how to handle the outrageous axial and lateral load combinations the structural engineer gave you this week, raise a toast of beer, wine, or other beverage of your choice to Professor Terzaghi and his work. You got to spend another day in the most fun and exciting field in civil engineering (really, who wants to sit at a desk designing moment connections all day?).

To reflect on the contributions of Professor Terzaghi, click here to go to an on-line reprint (by permission) of an article by Dr. Richard Goodman, P.E. from the October, 2002 issue of Geo-Strata.

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