Karl Von Terzaghi Bio

10/6/2011

Karl von Terzaghi - a knol by Ray

K arl von Terz Terzaghi aghi The Father of Soil Mechanics

To a civil engineer it is important to understand the basic properties of soil, considering it supports every structural structural foundation foundation.. Som So me of these properties prope rties incl include ude its origi origin, n, shear strength, and loadload - beari bea ring ng capac ca paciity. The branch of science science that concerns itself itself with with the the study of the the physical physical prope pr operties rties of soil, soil, along with the behavior of soil masses undergoing various types of forces, is referred to as soil mechanics (Das 1). Geotechnical engineering is a sub-discipline of civil engineering that incorporates the study of soil mechanics and rock mechanics to the design of foundations, earth structures, dams, and other retaining structures.

Though past civilizations have encountered numerous problems regarding geotechnical engineering matters, the birth of a new era in the study of soil mechanics began with the publication of  Erdbaumechanik   Erdbaumechanik  auf Bodenphysikalisher Grundlage Grundlage.. In 1925, Karl  Erdbaumechanik and Ka rl von Terzaghi Terzaghi published published Erdbaumechanik  and from that day forward he has been referred to as the father of mode modern rn soil mechan ec hanics. ics. To unders understand tand what lead to Terzaghi’s impressive contribution to the study of soil mechanics, one must first study his early life and  professional years.

Born on October 2, 1883 in Prague, Austria, Karl Terzaghi was the descendent of a long line of  mili militar tary y traditi trad ition. on. His grand grandfather, father, Majo Majorr Pietro Antonio Antonio Terzaghi, spent spent thirtythirty-one one years years in in the the Kaiser Kaiser’s ’s army, army, and recei rece ived num numerous decor de corations ations and and honors (Goodman). Karl Ka rl Terzaghi Terzaghi’s father, father, Lieutenant Lieutenant Colonel Anton Anton Terzaghi, Terzaghi, also also served ser ved many years years in the mili militar tary, y, but retired ret ired shortly after Karl K arl was born. born. His His wif wife for just over one o ne year, Karl Ka rl’s ’s mother, was Amali Amaliaa Eberle. Ebe rle. Her ancestors a ncestors were not of the mi military litary sort; on the other hand, her father was a mechanical engineer who graduated from Vienna Technical University. His name was Karl Eberle, and in later years he was noted for giving more than just a name to Karl Terzaghi. At the age of seven, Karl Terzaghi’s father died, and his grandfather Eberle became head of the Terzaghi household. The young young Terzaghi looked looked up to his his grandfather and a nd had this to say say about him in one of of his his memoirs: “[My grandfather] was an experienced and very energetic engineer of the old school…whose strong, lucid personality and upright masculine character strongly influenced my character until I reached maturity” (Goodman 6).

After studying at a military boarding school with an interest in geography and astronomy until the age knol.google.com/k/karl-von-terzaghi#

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of seventeen, he entered the Technical University in Graz, Austria in order to study mechanical engineering. During that time he became interested in theoretical mechanics, and even though he graduated with honors in 1900, he then decided to switch to civil engineering. At this time, however, he spent time in the army as his family on his father’s side expected that he also carried on the military tradition. It only took Terzaghi a year, however, to realize that the military life was not right for him. He later returned to the University and was able to combine the study of geography with courses on subjects that included highway and railway engineering. Shortly before graduation, he produced his first scientific paper which discussed the geology of terraces of  southern Styria, Austria (Goodman). Fresh out of academia, Terzaghi was ready to take on the world. He accepted his first job as a  junior design engineer for a firm out of Viena named Adol Baron Pittle. At that time the firm was undergoing work in the then new field of hydroelectric power generation. Terzaghi found himself becoming heavily involved with the geological problems the firm faced with the project. The success of this project, along with many others that followed, led Terzaghi to undergo more challenging assignments. He ended up in Russia for  several months designing more hydroelectric plants, and during that time developed some revolutionary methods for the design of industrial tanks. This attained him a doctorate from the Technical University, and an ambition to travel to America. In 1912, Terzaghi journeyed to America and went on a tour of several major dam construction sites in the West that concentrated on the engineering aspects of each project (Goodman). He used this opportunity to acquire first-hand knowledge and assemble reports on the different projects; he then brought   back to Austria all the information he obtained. He was shortly drafted into the Austrian army after World War I broke out, and found himself as an officer directing a 250 man engineering battalion (Goodman 53). After facing combat in Serbia and witnessing the fall of Belgrade, Terzaghi was assigned to design, develop, and produce an airplane that could be used as a “weapon of war”. In the summer of 1916, Terzaghi had gotten word that his beloved grandfather, Eberle, had passed away, and Terzaghi immediately took leave from the military to travel home (Goodman 60). It was at this point in his life that he undertook his first job in academia at the Royal Ottoman College of Engineering in Istanbul. It was at the Royal Ottoman College that Terzaghi found himself quite content and began working on incorporating soil mechanics into an engineering curriculum. His task was to try and comprehend soil as an engineering material whose properties could be measured empirically and in standardized ways. With just shear ambition, Terzaghi set up his own laboratory at the College using nothing but substandard equipment, knol.google.com/k/karl-von-terzaghi#

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and the legacy was born. His first published works in England were completed 1919 and dealt with measurements and analysis of forces on retaining walls (Goodman). Terzaghi, along with many of his colleges, were a bit amazed at how quickly this specific published work was recognized as an important contribution to the understanding of the fundamental behavior of soil. Even though he was forced to leave the Royal College, the fire was already ablaze, and Terzaghi found a new post at the American Robert College in Istanbul (Goodman 71). Again, with only a laboratory consisting of simple equipment, he studied various experimental and quantitative aspects of the permeability of  soils to water. After putting in many long hours gathering measurements on an entirely new apparatus he invented, Terzaghi was able to derive some theories to explain his observations. As mentioned previously, Terzaghi published Erdbaumechanik in 1925, which consisted of his measurements and theories developed during his time teaching. This publication is said to have single-handedly started the geotechnical engineering field, as it brought great acclaim and a job offer from MIT, which he immediately accepted. When Terzaghi arrived in America, he was presented with first major task: how was he to bring his work to the attention of the American engineers? He answered this question by first publishing a set of  articles in the Engineering News Record . The articles were published in the ENR in 1925, and then where compiled in a small book called Principles of Soil Mechanics in 1926 (Goodman 98). He, however, was faced with another problem: he felt the facilities at MIT were “abominable” and the facility served as an “obstruction”. With as much determination as Tony Romo has to lead the Dallas Cowboys to another Super  Bowl, Terzaghi did not let these obstacles interfere with his goal to comprehend soil. At MIT he set up yet another laboratory specifically designed to take measurements on soils using instruments of his own creation. It was at this time in his life that he devoted himself to publication work as well serving as a consultant on many large scale projects. One of theses projects was given to him by the New England Power  Company. Terzaghi was assigned to design a 180 foot high retaining wall as part of the Fifteen Mile Falls Dam on the Connecticut River (Goodman 109). The problem was not on the Vermont side of the project, as it was underlain by bedrock; however, it was on New Hampshire’s side whose base would continuously outwash. He performed his research at MIT at a cost of three times over budget to the school. In the end, he was not only able to solidify the theories he made in 1917, but he also saved the company a large amount of money. In 1928, he met a young Harvard geology doctoral student named Ruth Dogget and quickly started a serious relationship. It was on that same year that Terzaghi decided that he was done with MIT as he did not get along with its president in the least. He returned to Europe the following year and accepted a chair at the knol.google.com/k/karl-von-terzaghi#

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Vienna Technische Hochshule, in Germany, that winter (Goodman). He also married Dogget shortly after  and had her take on the role of his collaborator and editor. A brief consulting trip to Russia, not only dismayed Terzaghi, but it also turned him into a big opponent of Communism. He commented on his findings, saying that Russia’s drive for capitalism, fueled from war and bloodshed, is in no means an even trade for the “degeneration of the creative capacities of the average individuals” (Goodman 118). He returned to his post in Vienna and gained a high appreciation for his position. The school assigned him to only three lectures a week, and this allowed him to pursue consulting work, as well as travel to various conferences. He also continued working on several experimental investigations and started getting interested in the issues concerning the settlement of foundations, and of grouting. In the early 1930’s he began writing the manuscript for an updated and expanded version of  Erbaumechanick . This much anticipated version incorporated his more recent investigations and was now comprised of two volumes. The political commotion in Austria had started to interfere with his work. In 1935, he decided to take a year- long sabbatical and leave Vienna (Karl 3). With the disgust of Communism fresh in his mind, he   began his sabbatical trip in Nuremburg. He was there to consult with various architects regarding the enormous buildings planned to be constructed for the Nazi’s Party Day Rally. His idea for the best way to construct a sound foundation caused great conflict with the architects. This led to a discussion with Adolf  Hitler, who took great interest in Terzaghi’s work and settled the issue. Terzaghi then traveled back to America in order to attend the first ever International Conference on Soil Mechanics held at Harvard University in 1936. Not only did he serve as the chairman for the event, but on that occasion the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering was founded with Terzaghi as the president. He retained the position up until the fourth ICSM at London in 1957 (Goodman 167). After the conference, Terzaghi decided to make a tour around various American universities with hope in finding new employment, but found that these prospects were dim thanks to the Depression. He returned to Vienna in November of 1936 to a terrible professional and political controversy of  which he tried to avoid by leaving in the first place; it seems, however, that none of it had gone away. It was a man named Paul Fillunger who was at the center of the controversy. Fillunger had published a 47-page   pamphlet entitled “Erdbaumechanik?”, which was aimed to smear the name of soil mechanics as well as undermine the reputation of Terzaghi. It turned out that Fillunger, a former classmate of Terzaghi, was mentally unstable and very jealous of Terzaghi’s accomplishments. He eventually overcame this controversy, knol.google.com/k/karl-von-terzaghi#

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as it ended with the double suicide of Fillunger and his wife. Terzaghi was well aware of the eminent war and escaped from Germany frequently by extended consulting trips to large-scale construction projects in Europe. He frequently felt the pressure and even  publicly stated, “The Fatherland denoted me as a Nazi, the Nazis as a Bolshevik, and the Bolsheviks as a conservative idealist. Certainly only one of the three could be right, and that one is the Bolsheviks” (Goodman). It was decided that Terzaghi and his wife would travel to America and permanently reside there. In 1938, Terzaghi immigrated to the United States and took a position at Harvard University (Goodman 185). It turns out that Arthur Casagrande, Terzaghi’s good friend and professor at Harvard, had wanted Terzaghi to take a post at Harvard for several years. Casagrande had apparently even convinced the President of Harvard to hold the first ever International Conference on Soil Mechanics just so he could try and “lure” Terzaghi to the University. Casagrande’s efforts eventually paid off, as this was were Terzaghi was also introduced to the young structural engineer named Ralph Peck. In December, 1938, the city of Chicago came knocking on Terzaghi’s front door. The city had plans of development by implementing a subway, and asked Terzaghi to estimate the effects of tunneling on  buildings along the subway lines (Goodman 188). Terzaghi, however, had grander ideas and only agreed to work for the city if he was able to set-up a laboratory on premise, supervised by a man of his choosing, Ralph Peck. Together they studied the various Chicago clays and obtained a plethora of information on the consolidation and the bearing capacity of the clays. He also was involved with the Newport News Shipways, as well as raising the Normandie. After gaining a security clearance for defense work, Karl became an American citizen in March 1, 1943, referring to it as “the happiest day of my life” (Goodman 207). Terzaghi stayed at Harvard University as a part-time professor until he retired in 1953. It was this year that Terzaghi turned seventy years old, and it was a mandate at Harvard for all faculty to retire at that age. In July of 1953, Terzaghi became the chairman of the Consulting Board for the construction of the Aswan High Dam (Goodman 246). He resigned from this position six years later after getting into a heated conflict with the Russian engineers in charge of the  project. He then finished up his consulting career on various hydroelectric projects in British Columbia. Up until 1960, when he was forced to limit his activities for medical reasons, he taught engineering geology, wrote over a hundred professional papers, and produced countless reports in connection with his consulting activities. Each of his papers deals with the aspects of earthwork engineering and provides a fundamental criterion for evaluation and analysis of the problem involved. Terzaghi’s distinguished achievements can be symbolized by the nine honorary degrees bestowed on him from Universities in Ireland, knol.google.com/k/karl-von-terzaghi#

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Turkey, Mexico, Switzerland, The United States, Germany, Norway and Austria (Goodman). For months up until his death, on October 25, 1963, Karl Terzaghi’s had an everyday struggle. He always felt his research and work was never finished. He had wrote this in his journal before he died, “ If you discern your pattern before its too late and remain faithful to it, you shall approach the end of your journey with a deep sense of fulfillment, regardless of whether you were born to be a master or servant, mother or  mistress. Otherwise you may depart before you have ever found out what the word ‘living’ means” (Goodman 289). In my opinion Terzaghi had, in fact, lived and his contributions to the civil engineering field will also for centuries.  ____________________ 

Das, Braja.  Principles of Geotechnical Engineering . 5th Edition. Wadsworth Group, 2002. Goodman, Richard E.  Karl Terzaghi: The Engineer as Artist . American society of Civil Engineers, 1999. Online Distance Education

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Antonios Vytiniotis Untitled

great job!! i would add a bit more citations at the end!! Keep up man!! Last edited Oct 5, 2008 4:22 PM Report abusive comment 0 Post reply to this comment ▼

knol.google.com/k/karl-von-terzaghi#

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