Karl von Terzaghi

Karl von Terzaghi (Prague, October 2, 1883 – Winchester, Massachusetts, October 25, 1963) was an Austrian civil engineer, called the father of soil mechanics. He was called one of the most prominent civil engineers of the twentieth century ^*

Biography

Early life

Karl von Terzaghi was the first child of Lieutenant Colonel Anton Terzaghi and Amalia Eberle in Prague, a major city in what was then a part of the Habsburg Empire, ruled at the time by Franz Josef, Kaiser of Austria. On Anton's retirement from the army, the family moved to Graz, Austria. As his family had a long military tradition, at the age of ten Karl was also sent to a military boarding school. He developed an interest in astronomy and geography and at age 14 he entered another military school, this time in what is now Hranice, Czech Republic. He was an excellent student, especially in geometry and mathematics, and graduated with honors at seventeen. He then entered the Technical University in Graz in mechanical engineering. He became especially interested there in theoretical mechanics, but was a somewhat rambunctious student, and was nearly expelled at one point. He graduated with honors in 1900, but then decided to switch to civil engineering. While serving a compulsory one year's military service, he translated and greatly extended a popular field manual on geology in English to his native German. He returned to the University for one year after this, and combined the study of geology with courses on such subjects as highway and railway engineering. He shortly produced his first scientific paper, on the geology of terraces of southern Styria.

Early professional years

His first job was as a junior design engineer for the firm Adol Baron Pittle, Vienna. The firm was becoming more involved in the relatively new field of hydroelectric power generation, and Karl became involved in the geological problems the firm faced. His responsibilities quickly increased, and by 1908 was already adept at managing a construction site, the workers, and the design and construction of steel reinforced structures. He embarked on an ambitious and challenging project to construct a hydroelectric dam in Croatia. He went on with great success to an even more chaotic project in St. Petersburg. During the six months in Russia, he developed some novel graphical methods for the design of industrial tanks, which he submitted as a thesis for his doctorate at the University. His growing list of achievements began to open more windows of opportunity to him. He resolved to go to America, which he did in 1912.

In America, on his own, he undertook an engineering tour of major dam construction sites in the West. This was no ordinary tour, but was his opportunity to gather reports and first-hand knowledge of the problems of many different projects, and he used it to the fullest before returning to Austria in December 1913. When the War broke out, he found himself drafted into the army as an officer directing a 250 man engineering battalion. His responsibilities again increased, leading now 1000 men, and he faced combat in Serbia and witnessed the fall of Belgrade. After a short stint managing an airfield, he became a professor in the Royal Ottoman College of Engineering in Constatinople.

Here he began a happy, very productive period, in which he began his lifelong work of bringing true engineering understanding to soil as an engineering material whose properties could be measured in standardized ways. He set up a laboratory using only the most rudimentary of equipment, and began his revolution. His measurements and analysis of the force on retaining walls were first published in English in 1919, and was quickly recognized as an important new contribution to the scientific understanding of the fundamental behavior of soils.

At the end of the war, he was forced to resign his post at the University, but managed to find a new post at tiny Robert College in a town just north of Constantinople. Here he switched his teaching language from French to English, and again constructed a laboratory out of the most simple equipment. This time he studied various experimental and quantitative aspects of the permeability of soils to water and was able to work out some theories to explain the observations. He invented entirely new apparatus for the measurements and put in many long days of work to carry out the measurements himself. In 1924 he published much of this in his Magnum Opus, Erdbaumechanik which revolutionized the field to great acclaim. It resulted in a job offer from MIT, which he immediately accepted.

Later years

One of his first tasks in America was to bring his work to the attention of American engineers. This he proceeded to do by writing a series of articles for the Engineering News Record, which were published in the winter of 1925, then as a small book in 1926. He found the facilities at MIT abombinable and obstruction from the administration. He brushed these obstacles aside, and once more set up a new laboratory geared to making measurements on soils with instruments of his own devising. He entered a new phase of prolific publication and a rapidly growing and lucrative involvement as an engineering consultant on many large-scale projects.

He was much sought after as a dinner companion and was a fascinating conversationalist. His striking good looks and evident power was very attractive to women. In 1928 he met the young Harvard doctoral student in geology, Ruth Dogget, and fell deeply in love.

In 1928 Terzaghi was finally fed up with MIT and its president, and determined to return to Europe. He accepted a chair at the Vienna Technische Hochshule in the winter of 1929. He married Ruth, who, became his editor and collaborator as well. A short consulting trip to Russia before taking up his post horrified him, and he came to oppose the Communist system there as a regime exemplified by its brutality and chaos. Using Austria as his base he traveled ceaselessly throughout Europe, consulting and lecturing, and making new professional contacts and collaborations. His teaching workload was now relatively light, so he continued his experimental investigations, and became especially interested in the problems of the settling of foundations, and of grouting. He began writing the manuscript for a much updated and expanded version of Erdbaumechanik, now set for two volumes. However, the political turmoil in Austria began to interfere with his work, and in 1935 he decided to take a leave from Vienna during 1935 to 1936.

He began his sabbatical with a short trip to consult with Todt and the architects of the proposed grandiose plans for immense buildings at the Nazi's Party Day Rally site in Nuremburg. This led to a conflict over the best way to lay a sound foundation, which led to a discussion with Hitler himself, who took an intense interest in all details of the architecture. Terzaghi then returned to America where he gave a plenary lecture at the International Conference on Soil Mechanics at Harvard University. He made a lecture tour of many other universities, but discovered that prospects for employment were dim. He returned to Vienna in November of 1936, shortly after the birth of his first son, Eric. In Vienna, he returned to a nasty professional and political controversy, which he overcame only with some difficulty. He memorably 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." He escaped from Vienna frequently by extended consulting trips to major construction projects in England, Italy, France, Algeria and Latvia, adding greatly to his store of practical engineering experience.

In 1938 Terzaghi emigrated to the United States and took up a post at Harvard University. Before the end of the war, he consulted on the Chicago Subway system, the Newport News Shipways construction, and raising the Normandie, among others. He became an American citizen in March 1943. He remained as a part-timer at Harvard university until his retirement in 1953 at the mandatory age of 70. In July of the next year, he became the chairman of the Consulting Board for the construction of the Aswan High Dam. He resigned this post in 1959 after coming into conflict with the Russian engineers in charge of the project, but continued to consult on various hydroelectric projects, especially in British Columbia. He died in 1963.

Legacy

The American Society of Civil Engineers established in 1960 the Karl Tezaghi Award to an "author of outstanding contributions to knowledge in the fields of soil mechanics, subsurface and earthwork engineering, and subsurface and earthwork construction." The Terzaghi and Peck Library, which is managed by the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, in Oslo, Norway holds an extensive collection of his papers.[http://www.ngi.no/English/files/terzaghi_library_memoirs.pdf The Mission Dam in British Columbia, Canada, was renamed his honor as the Terzaghi Dam in 1965.

References

R. E. Goodman, Karl Terzaghi American Society of Civil Engineers (1999) ISBN 0784403643.

Books

(a partial list)

Terzaghi, K., Theoretical Soil Mechanics, John Wiley and Sons, New York (1943) ISBN 0471853054.
Terzaghi, K., Peck, R. B. and Mesri, G., Soil Mechanics in Engineering Practice, 3rd Ed. Wiley-Interscience (1996) ISBN 0471086584.
Terzaghi, K., "Large Retaining Wall Tests", Engineering News Record Feb.1, March 8, April 19 (1934).
Terzaghi, K., From theory to practice in soil mechanics;: Selections from the writings of Karl Terzaghi, with bibliography and contributions on his life and achievents John Wiley and Sons (1967).

External links

ejge.com/Terzaghi.htm

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