James P. Gould

James P. Gould (born 1923 in Seattle ; † December 24, 1998 ) was an American civil engineer ( geotechnical engineering ).

Gould studied at the University of Washington , where his father taught mathematics and astronomy, and after a break from military service during World War II at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , where he received his master's degree in civil engineering in 1946. He then completed a postgraduate course in geology at the University of Washington and studied soil mechanics at Harvard University with Arthur Casagrande with a master’s degree in 1948 and a doctorate in 1949 (on the settlement and consolidation of clay soils during the construction of Logan Airport in Boston). From 1950 to 1953 he was with the US Bureau of Reclamation in Denver , where he made pore water pressure measurements on dams in the earth dam department. He then worked for Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers in New York City, where he was promoted to associate in 1955 and partner in 1973. In 1994 he retired as a senior consultant for the company, but continued to work as a consulting engineer. He died of lung cancer.

His construction projects included several government buildings in Washington, DC (reconstruction of the Eastern Front of the Capitol from 1955 to 1960, underpinning of the House of Representatives from 1962 to 1964, extension of the National Gallery of Art from 1970 to 1972, expansion of the Smithsonian Institution from 1984 to 1986) and in particular at the Washingtoner Subway. In New York City he was involved in the founding of the Chase Manhattan Bank (1958-1960), the North River Waterfront Redevelopment Project (1965-1968), the Battery Park urban development project, the renovation of the Park Avenue Tunnel (1988/89). In Europe he advised on the construction of the Channel Tunnel and in Texas on the tunnel construction of the Superconducting Super Collider . He also examined landslides ( Pacific Palisades , California, 1958-1960), dry dock foundations ( Newport News ), and canal locks (Tennessee-Tombigbee Canal).

In 1990 he was a Terzaghi Lecturer . He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering (1988) and an honorary member (1990) of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the New York Academy of Sciences .

He was the author of the first version of the US Navy Design Manual DM-7 for Soil Mechanics, Foundations and Earth Structures from 1971.

He was married twice and had two children from his first marriage. His hobbies were painting and British military history.

Web links

• Biography in the Obituaries of the National Academy of Engineering by Ralph B. Peck