Laurits Bjerrum
Laurits Bjerrum (born August 6, 1918 in Farsø , Denmark ; † February 27, 1973 ) was a Danish-Norwegian engineer for foundation engineering and soil mechanics. He is a pioneer in soil mechanics in Norway .
Life
Bjerrum was the son of a Danish surgeon. He studied civil engineering at the Technical University of Denmark , where he graduated in 1941 and then headed the foundation engineering and soil mechanics department at the engineering office of Christen Ostenfeld (now COWI ) in Copenhagen until 1947 . In 1947 he became a member of the Research Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Earthworks at ETH Zurich , where he received his doctorate in 1951 with a thesis on the shear resistance of soils by Meyer-Peter and Haefeli ( Theoretical and experimental investigations on the shear strength of soils ). From 1951 until his death he was director of the newly founded Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) in Oslo , which he built into a leading research institute in Europe with international ties and 95 employees upon his death. He lectured regularly at European and US universities, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cambridge University .
Bjerrum is particularly known for his work on the shear resistance of clays. In doing so, he built on the work of Mikael Juul Hvorslev and, like Alan W. Bishop in England at the same time, developed the triaxial device measurements. He dealt specifically with the soft marine clays that often lead to landslides in Norway.
He gave both the Terzaghi Lecture of the ASCE (1967) and the Rankine Lecture (1967) of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). In 1971 he received the Terzaghi Award from ASCE. He was a member of the Danish and Norwegian national civil engineering societies and national engineering academies, the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, the ASCE (1972) and the ICE. He was also a member of the International Society of Rock Mechanics and a corresponding member of the Venezuelan Civil Engineering Society. He was an honorary member of the Norwegian Geotechnical Society. From 1965 to 1969 he was President of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering (ISSMFE), after having been Vice President for Europe from 1961 to 1965. In 1965 he received an honorary doctorate from Loyola College in Baltimore . In 1966 he received the Norwegian Sam Eyde Prize.
Bjerrum was married and had three children.
Others
Thanks to the efforts of Bjerrum, there is a Terzaghi library at the NGI with many manuscripts by Karl von Terzaghi , which Bjerrum received from his successor OK Fröhlich from Vienna and which he cataloged with Terzaghi's help. In 1960 he edited with others selected works by Terzaghis ( From Theory to Practice in Soil Mechanics ).
Fonts
- Fundamental considerations on the shear strength of soils , Geotechnique, Volume 2, 1951, pp. 209-224
- Geotechnical properties of norwegian marine clays , Geotechnique, Volume 4, 1954, p. 49
- Special earthwork mechanical problems in Norway , lectures on the building site conference in 1954 in Stuttgart
- with O. Eide Stability of strutted excavations in clay , Geotechnique, Volume 6, 1956, pp. 32-47
- with Landva Direct simple shear tests on a norwegian quick clay , Geotechnique, Volume 16, 1966, pp. 1-20
- Stability of natural slopes in quick clay , Geotechnique, Vol. 5, 1955, pp. 101-119
- with Alec Skempton : A contribution to the settlement analysis of foundations on clay , Geotechnique, Volume 7, 1957, pp. 168-178
- Engineering geology of norwegian normally consolidated marine clays as related to settlements of buildings , Geotechnique, Volume 17, 1967, pp. 81–117 (7th Rankine Lecture)
- Progressive failure in slopes of overconsolidated plastic clay shales , Proc. ASCE, Volume 93, 1967, pp. 3–49 (3rd Terzaghi Lecture)
- Geotechnical problems involved in foundations of structures in the north sea , Geotechnique 23, 1973, pp. 319-358
literature
- Obituary in Geotechnique 1973, p. 306, by the staff of the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, with a list of publications
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Together they gave a lecture about it at the Boulder Conference of the ASCE in 1960
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Bjerrum, Laurits |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Danish-Norwegian engineer for foundation engineering and soil mechanics |
DATE OF BIRTH | August 6, 1918 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Farsø , Denmark |
DATE OF DEATH | February 27, 1973 |