Alec Skempton

Sir Alec Skempton (4 June 1914 - 9 August 2001) was a leader in and founding father of soil mechanics. As a founding member of the Institution of Civil Engineers' Soil Mechanics and Foundations committees he studied at City and Guilds College London and established the Soil Mechanics course at Imperial College London, where the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department's building is named after him.

Skempton worked on many high profile projects through his life as well as occupying important positions within the ICE; notably the Chingford reservoir failure and other embankment dams, including that at Chew Valley Lake, for which he designed an array of sand-drains to accelerate consolidation of the weak alluvial foundations, the first such in the UK. [Richard J. Chandler, ‘Skempton, Sir Alec Westley (1914–2001)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn, Oxford University Press, Jan 2005 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/76140, accessed 16 July 2007] ] He was the chair of the civil engineers archive panel at ICE where he edited work on John Smeaton, regarded as the founder of civil engineering.

In situ behaviour of natural clays was of great interest to Skempton, who wrote two papers published by the Geological Society on the geological compaction of natural clays. Amongst other academic writings, he formulated concepts such as that of A and B pore water pressure coefficient which is still widely used today.

Other accolades to his name include Fellow of the Royal Society, Founding Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the second president of International Society of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, following Terzaghi. Skempton also accumulated medals from the ICE, the Geological Society, Newcomen Society, the Terzaghi award from the American Society of Civil Engineers and a gold medal from the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE).

References

* Guardian Unlimited Obituary: [http://education.guardian.co.uk/obituary/story/0,12212,750271,00.html]
* Geological Society Obituary: [http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/template.cfm?name=Obituaries2001B]
* Famous Engineers - iCivilEngineer: [http://www.icivilengineer.com/Famous_Engineers/Skempton/]

External links

* ICE [http://www.ice.org.uk]
* IStructe [http://www.istructe.org.uk]
*Imperial College London Biography on Sir Alec Skempton [www.cv.ic.ac.uk/.../ skempton_biography1.htm]

Further reading

"A Particle of Clay: the Biography of Alec Skempton". ISBN 1-870325-84-2