T. William Lambe

Thomas William Lambe (born November 28, 1920 in Raleigh (North Carolina) ; † March 6, 2017 ) was an American geotechnician , long professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Lambe studied civil engineering at North Carolina State University (Bachelor 1942), was from 1943 at MIT, where he received his doctorate in 1948 under Donald Wood Taylor . Before that, he was assistant to Karl von Terzaghi and Taylor in their work as consulting engineers. For many decades, until his retirement in 1981, he was Professor of Geotechnics ( Edmund K. Turner Professor of Civil Engineering ) at MIT, at times head of the Faculty of Geotechnics and head of the Soil Stabilization Laboratory. In addition, he had extensive work as a consulting engineer.

Lambe was also involved in the Apollo moon landing program and designed the ground surveys there. He was an honorary member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the Institution of Civil Engineers . In 1964 he received the Norman Medal of the ASCE, in 1975 the Terzaghi Award, in 1970 he was Terzaghi Lecturer and in 1973 he was Rankine Lecturer ( Predictions in Soil engineering , Geotechnique, Volume 23, 1973, pp. 149-202). He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering . In 1997 he gave the Spencer J. Buchanan Lecture at Texas A & M University ( The selection of soil strength for a stability analysis , on the causes of embankment fractures, three quarters of which he attributes to an increase in pore water pressure from his practical experience with damage cases) .

literature

• Lambe, Robert V. Whitman Soil Mechanics , MIT Press 1969, and new edition ( SI units version with Harry Poulos ), Wiley 1979
• Lambe Soil Testing for Engineers , Wiley 1951

Web links

• Biography with photo given at the 1982 North Carolina State University Distinguished Alumni Awards
• Biography on the occasion of the Buchanan Lecture 1997 at Texas A & M University, pdf