2001 Burmister Lecture
Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
Columbia University
What is New in Drilled Shaft Foundations?
by
Professor Emeritus
Northwestern University
November 7, 2001
2:30 - 3:30 p.m.
Davis Auditorium
Columbia University
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Jorj Osterberg has degrees from Columbia, Harvard and Cornell Universities.
During his formal education he worked during summers and for short periods
for foundation contractors. His first full time employment was a
three year period with the Corps of Engineers at the Waterways Experiment
Station in Vicksburg, Mississippi, after which he entered the academic
world. While at Northwestern University, he rose through the ranks
to Chair Professor. He designed and built the soils laboratory, and developed
the Osterberg Hydraulic Piston Sampler. Since his retirement he has been
active in consulting and developing the Osterberg Load Cell method for
load testing drilled shafts and driven piles. He holds 10 patents.
Osterberg is a former Chairman of the Soil Mechanics and Foundation Division of the ASCE. He is an Honorary Member of ASCE, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He delivered the Terzaghi Lecture in 1985, and later received the Terzaghi Award. He is one of the few surviving founding members of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, and the only survivor two both attended and had a paper in the proceedings of the first International meeting of the Society in 1936 and in the fifteenth meeting this year. He has received the Distinguished Service Award from the Deep Foundations Institute and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Drilled Shaft Contractors. |
Osterberg, as a student of Professor Burmister, had taken his undergraduate and graduate courses in Soil Mechanics. He did his C.E. degree thesis under Burmister, worked for him in the Soil Mechanics Laboratory, and received his first job through Burmister for a contractor driving piles for the 1938 World's Fair.
Read also the
introduction given by Prof. Krizek during the 21st Terzaghi Lecture
(from Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, Vol. 115, No. 11, 1989)
Note: Professor Osterberg passed away on May 31, 2008. Born in 1915, he was 93. [6/4/08]
Other links:
National
Academy of Engineering
Osterberg Cell
Deep Foundation Institute