John Burland

John Burland ( born March 4, 1936, in Buckinghamshire ) is a British civil engineer for geotechnical engineering.

Burlands family emigrated after the Second World War to South Africa, where he went to school in Johannesburg. He studied civil engineering at Witwatersrand University with a degree in 1958. Starting from 1961 he was with the engineering firm Ove Arup and Partners, London. He moved back to the University, received his doctorate at the University of Cambridge in Kenneth Roscoe 1968 ( deformation of soft clay ) and went to the Building Research Establishment ( BRE ) in Watford, where he in 1972, the geotechnical department took over and deputy at the end was a director. In 1980 he became professor of soil mechanics at Imperial College.

As an engineer, scientist working on the Critical State Soil Mechanics his teacher Roscoe and improved ( in his thesis ) in the Cam Clay model of Tonverhaltens. The mid-1970s, he oversaw some deep excavations in the City of London, for example, the garage under the Palace of Westminster (Parliament), where early finite element calculations were carried out for excavation and were compared with strain measurements at the pit or underground parking. Later he was involved in backing up important buildings such as Big Ben and the Parliament along the extension of the subway (London Underground Jubilee Line ).

He became famous as he was involved in the 1990s for twelve years the geotechnical measures to rescue the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He was a member of the Italian Geotechnical Commission to the rescue of the tower ( directed by Michele Jamiolkowski ) and developed a system of soil removal from the north side of the tower ( which is inclined to the south ), so that this straightened again by its own weight. The work began in February 1999, after the tower was secured by steel cables. The slope was reduced to the level of 1838 ( 4 m from the vertical at the 60m high peak ). He was re-opened to the public in 2001. Burland was awarded the Order high Italian. He was also ( known for earthquake hazard and a difficult ground on a former lake with volcanic ash deposits ) in the Commission establishing secure the Cathedral in Mexico City.

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