Schnabel Engineering Lecture

Schnabel Engineering is pleased to bring you Dr. Edward J. Cording as our eighth lecturer of this series. Dr. Cording is Professor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he has taught and performed research in geotechnical engineering, focusing on rock mechanics, soil-structure interaction, and underground construction. The field has been his laboratory, on engineering projects; beginning in the 1960's with large deep caverns in weak rock in Nevada; in the 1970's with subway tunnels, braced excavations, and rock caverns on the Washington, DC Metro; and continuing with deep tunnels in squeezing ground in the Uintah Mountains, urban tunneling in soft, consolidating Chicago clay, and investigations of the effects of urban tunneling and excavation on building distortion and damage.

Dr. Cording has consulted on numerous underground projects for subways, rail, wastewater, highways, water supply, mines, liquefied gas storage, high energy physics, nuclear waste, and hydro-electric power. Recent projects have included subway and rail tunnel projects in Manhattan, including a proposal for placing LIRR terminal in deep rock caverns beneath Grand Central Terminal. He currently serves on the Tunnel Advisory Panel for the Los Angeles Metro for their light and heavy rail subway extensions. He is a consultant to Seattle Tunnel Partners, the design-build team for the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel, preparing procedures for monitoring and controlling ground movements as a 57.5-foot-diameter tunnel boring machine, is driven in glacial soils in downtown Seattle.

He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and has been honored by many for his career contributions including: ASCE Martin S. Kapp Award; Moles Non-member Award; Geo-Institute Harry Schnabel, Jr. Award for Career Excellence in Earth Retaining Structures; Outstanding Educator Award of the Underground Construction Association of SME; and the Beaver's Engineering Award for Outstanding Achievement in Heavy Engineering Construction.

This lecture will describe the revolution that allows tunneling deep beneath waterways without inflow of water or soil and at shallow depths below urban structures without damage. Recent transit tunnel projects driven with pressure-face tunnel boring machines (EPBMs) in Toronto and Seattle will be used to demonstrate how ground is controlled and building damage prevented by monitoring ground movements and ground water conditions and linking them with the electronic readout of tunnel boring machine functions. Increasingly, the civil/geotechnical engineer must rely on these readouts to determine how the ground is being controlled. However, the civil/geotechnical engineer also builds on the precedents and experience gained over many years of observing the ground and how it "behaves" as the tunnel is excavated and supported. This knowledge is being applied as Bertha, the world's largest tunnel boring machine at 57.5 feet in diameter, starts its drive under hundreds of building in downtown Seattle.

We are honored that Dr. Cording joins our past lecturers, Dr. Donald Bruce, Mr. Jerry DiMaggio, Mr. Scot Litke, Mr. James Morrison, Mr. Douglas Boyer, Mr. Don Deere, and Dr. Ray Martin.

Please join us:

Wednesday, November 6th 2013

3:30pm Owen's Banquet Hall

Reception to Follow