Location
Chicago, Illinois
Date
01 May 2013, 10:50 am - 11:10 am
Abstract
Early in his engineering career, Ralph Peck supervised the soil mechanics investigations during subway construction in the soft clays in Chicago, working under the guidance of Karl Terzaghi. A major focus was to determine what should be done to minimize surface settlements of the streets. Squeeze tests, in which clay displacements and construction events in the tunnel were observed, led to changes that significantly reduced surface settlement. Squeeze test reports prepared by Peck and his soil mechanics team are summarized and selected drawings illustrated. The work provides a first view of Peck’s observational method: “it demonstrated the enormous practical benefits … that may be derived from simple but intelligently interpreted observations.” Over the past 70 years, it has served as a standard for investigation and control of ground movement, examples of which are summarized at the end of the paper.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
7th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2013 Missouri University of Science and Technology, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Cording, Edward J., "Tunneling in Chicago Clay: Pioneering Work in Ground Control" (2013). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 4.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/7icchge/session15/4
Tunneling in Chicago Clay: Pioneering Work in Ground Control
Chicago, Illinois
Early in his engineering career, Ralph Peck supervised the soil mechanics investigations during subway construction in the soft clays in Chicago, working under the guidance of Karl Terzaghi. A major focus was to determine what should be done to minimize surface settlements of the streets. Squeeze tests, in which clay displacements and construction events in the tunnel were observed, led to changes that significantly reduced surface settlement. Squeeze test reports prepared by Peck and his soil mechanics team are summarized and selected drawings illustrated. The work provides a first view of Peck’s observational method: “it demonstrated the enormous practical benefits … that may be derived from simple but intelligently interpreted observations.” Over the past 70 years, it has served as a standard for investigation and control of ground movement, examples of which are summarized at the end of the paper.
