Alec Skempton
| Sir Alec Westley Skempton | |
|---|---|
| Born |
4 June 1914 Northampton, England |
| Died | 9 August 2001 (aged 87) London, England |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields | Soil Mechanics |
| Institutions | Imperial College London, UK |
| Alma mater | Imperial College London, UK |
| Academic advisors | Alfred Pippard |
| Notable students | Alan W. Bishop |
| Known for | Skempton's A & B pore water pressure coefficients bearing capacity of foundations Skempton Building |
| Notable awards | 4th Rankine Lecture (1964) Lyell Medal (1972) IStructE Gold Medal (1981) |
Sir Alec Westley Skempton FRS FREng (4 June 1914 – 9 August 2001) was an English civil engineer internationally recognised, along with Karl Terzaghi, as one of the founding fathers of the engineering discipline of soil mechanics. He established the soil mechanics course at Imperial College London, where the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department's building was renamed after him in 2004, and was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to engineering. He was also a notable contributor on the history of British civil engineering.
Skempton was born in Northampton and attended Northampton grammar school. In 1932 Skempton he went to the City and Guilds College in London to study civil engineering. After beginning work on a Goldsmiths' Company bursary-funded PhD, he joined the Building Research Station (BRS) in 1936, initially working on reinforced concrete before moving to soil mechanics in 1937.
The failure of an earth embankment for a reservoir at Chingford in north-east London helped highlight Skempton's insights on clay strata. Other projects included Waterloo Bridge, the Muirhead dam near Largs in Scotland, Gosport Dockyard and the Eau Brink Cut channel of the River Great Ouse near King's Lynn.
In 1945, Skempton was seconded from BRS to establish a soil mechanics course at Imperial College (recruiting Alan W. Bishop as his first member of staff), becoming a full-time lecturer there in 1946, and introducing, in 1950, the first postgraduate course in soil mechanics. In 1955, he was elevated to the chair of soil mechanics, and from 1957 to 1976 was head of department and professor of civil engineering.
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