Robert V. Whitman

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Robert Van Duyne Whitman (born February 2, 1928 in Pittsburgh , † February 25, 2012 in Lexington , Massachusetts ) was an American civil engineer ( geotechnical engineering ).

Whitman studied at Swarthmore College (Bachelor in 1948) and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he made his Masters degree in 1949 and received his doctorate in 1951 under Donald Wood Taylor . He then conducted research at MIT, became an assistant professor in 1953 and then a professor at MIT. He has been a professor emeritus since 1997.

Whitman was particularly concerned with soil dynamics and earthquakes. He was already in the 1960s in various committees for earthquake engineering (for example the National Academy of Engineering) and was chairman of a committee of the National Research Council, which published a 1985 report on liquefaction in earthquakes. He was also instrumental in national earthquake risk assessment committees in the United States and in the development of Norman for earthquake-proof construction in the United States. From 1993 to 2000 he led the HAZUS project of the National Institute of Building Science, which developed software for US municipalities to estimate earthquake risk (National Earthquake Loss Estimation Methodology).

With T. William Lambe he published a well-known textbook on soil mechanics in the USA.

In 1981 he was Terzaghi Lecturer and received the Terzaghi Award in 1987 . In 1994 he was awarded the Croes Medal, in 1964 the Huber Research Prize of the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) and in 2000 he was Carillo Lecturer of the Mexican Society for Soil Mechanics ( Fifty years of soil dynamics ). In 2010 he received the George W. Housner Medal from the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI). From 1979 to 1981 he was Vice President and 1985/86 President of the EERI. Since 1997 he has been an honorary member. He was also a member of the National Academy of Engineering .

Whitman had been married since 1954 and had two children.

Fonts

  • with Lambe: Soil Mechanics , MIT Press 1969, new edition with Harry Poulos , Wiley 1979
  • Editor and co-author: Liquefaction of soil during earthquakes , National Research Council, 1985
  • Organizing and Evaluating Uncertainty in Geotechnical Engineering , J. Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, Volume 126, 2000, pp. 583-593
  • with T. Anagnos, CA Kircher, HJ Lagorio, RS Lawson, P. Schneider: Development of a National Earthquake Loss Estimation Methodology , Earthquake Spectra, Volume 13, 1997, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Oakland, California.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dates of birth according to American Men and Woman of Science , Thomson Gale 2005
personal data
SURNAME Whitman, Robert V.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Whitman, Robert Van Duyne (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American civil engineer (geotechnical engineering)
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Pittsburgh
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 2012
Place of death Lexington, Massachusetts