Alec Skempton

Professor
Sir Alec Skempton
FRS FREng
Born
Sir Alec Wesley Skempton

(1914-06-04)4 June 1914
Northampton, England
Died9 August 2001(2001-08-09) (aged 87)
London, England
NationalityBritish
CitizenshipUnited Kingdom
Alma materImperial College London, UK
Known forSkempton's A & B pore water pressure coefficients
bearing capacity of foundations
Skempton Building
Awards4th Rankine Lecture (1964)
Lyell Medal (1972)
IStructE
Gold Medal (1981)
Scientific career
FieldsSoil Mechanics
InstitutionsImperial College London, UK
Academic advisorsAlfred Pippard
Notable studentsAlan W. Bishop

Sir Alec Westley Skempton (4 June 1914 – 9 August 2001)[1] was an English civil engineer internationally recognised, along with Karl Terzaghi, as one of the founding fathers of the engineering discipline of soil mechanics.[2] 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,[3] 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.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Guardian was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Chandler, R. J. (2003). "Sir Alec Westley Skempton. 4 June 1914 - 9 August 2001". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 49: 509–519. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2003.0030.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference ImpColl was invoked but never defined (see the help page).