Frank E. Richart

Frank E. Richart (born December 6, 1918 , † September 16, 1994 in Ann Arbor ) was an American civil engineer in geotechnical engineering .

Richart studied at the University of Illinois , where he made his bachelor's degree (in mechanical engineering) in 1940 and his master's degree (in civil engineering) in 1946. In 1948 he received his doctorate there and was then an assistant professor at Harvard University . In 1952 he became an associate professor at the University of Florida . In 1954 he was given a full professorship there. From 1962 until his retirement in 1986 he was a professor at the University of Michigan . From 1962 to 1969 he headed the Faculty of Civil Engineering there.

He is best known as the American pioneer and expert in soil dynamics, which he taught in courses at the University of Florida as early as 1961 and on which he wrote a standard work (with John R. Hall and his doctoral student Richard D. Woods ). For this purpose, he developed measuring devices for the laboratory (resonant column, cyclic torsion shear) and for field measurements (in situ), such as seismic crosshole measuring methods between boreholes. He advised on construction projects such as the radar antennas of the Distant Early Warning System in the 1950s, for the establishment of nuclear power plants or for drilling rigs.

In 1969 he became a member of the National Academy of Engineering . In 1972 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Florida and in 1987 from Northwestern University . In 1968/69 he headed the Geotechnical Engineering Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), whose Terzaghi Lecture he gave in 1974 (Some effects of dynamic soil properties on soil structure), whose Terzaghi Award he received in 1980 and whose honorary member he became in 1986 .

He was married and had two sons. Richart was a passionate golfer.

Fonts

• Richart Foundation Vibrations , Transactions ASCE, Volume 127, 1962
• with FE Richart, John R. Hall Vibration of soil and foundations , Prentice-Hall 1970 (also translated into Chinese, Japanese, Romanian)

Web links

• Obituary at the National Academy of Engineering by Richard D. Woods

Individual evidence

1. ^ Frank E. Richart in the US Social Security Death Directory (SSDI), accessed October 4, 2018