Gerald A. Leonards

Gerald A. Leonards (born April 29, 1921 in Montreal , † February 1, 1997 ) was a Canadian-American civil engineer specializing in geotechnical engineering .

Leonards studied at McGill University (bachelor's degree in 1943) and from 1946 at Purdue University , where he made his master's degree in 1948 and received his doctorate from Ralph Fadum in 1952 ( Strength characteristics of compacted clays ), whereupon he became an assistant professor (but he had already taught at the University). In 1955 he became an associate professor at Purdue University and in 1958 a professor. From 1965 to 1968 he was head of the civil engineering faculty. From 1991 he was Professor Emeritus.

Leonards wrote a well-known foundation textbook in the USA and as a scientist dealt with the soil mechanical properties of compacted clay, failure of earth dams, consolidation and stability of slopes and earth dams with soft clays, earthquake liquefaction of sand (liquefaction), effects of ground frost , Earth pressure on pipes in the ground, soil mechanics in road construction, methodology of failure analysis in foundation engineering.

Leonards was the only non-European in the Italian geotechnical commission for the Leaning Tower of Pisa . In 1988 he became a member of the National Academy of Engineering and he was an honorary member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). In 1989 he received an honorary doctorate from McGill University. In 1996 he received the Terzaghi Award and in 1980 he was Terzaghi Lecturer .

He had been married since 1945 and had a son and a daughter. Leonards was a US citizen.

Since 2003 there has been a lecture in his honor at Purdue University (Gerald A. Leonards Lecture).

Fonts

• as editor: Foundation Engineering , McGraw Hill 1962
• as editor: Dam Failures (Proc. Internat. Workshop), Elsevier 1987

Web links

• Biography, english