7th Lumb lecture 10th October 2012 “Peter Lumb’s legacy, Soil Mechanics = Simple concepts + mathematical processes + lateral thinking”

Abstract

Professor Peter Lumb’s legacy to the Hong Kong geotechnical engineering profession was 32 years of service at the University of Hong Kong. For this he is fondly remembered by his many students as a quiet teacher, a contemplative man. The majority of his time Peter had grappled with tropical weathering and its consequence in engineering properties as well as the performance of soils and rock in an industry that was mostly not very enlightened for some 24 years before the Geotechnical Control Office (GCO), was established.

In his early days reliable laboratory testing was not common. Peter built the first testing laboratory in Hong Kong . Computers were under development and not in use. Peter taught assessment, insight and auditable hand calculations. Faced with a heavily regulatory system designed to compensate for inadequacies of the not well informed amongst the practitioners, he shied away from getting involved with day to day projects. As a profound thinker, when Ken Roscoe at Cambridge University was working on Critical State Soil Mechanics and Alan Bishop at Imperial College London was trying to perfect uni-axial compression tests, Peter realised that statistics was a means of handling variation, uncertainty and risk. Like some other geotechnical people, trained to investigate, he branched out into a new field and became a worldwide specialist in statistical theory not related to applications to soil mechanics.

He retired 26 years ago. What have been the fruits of his legacy? The most obvious results are dozens of his former students who have carried on his tradition, not necessarily in soil mechanics, and have achieved high positions and led worthwhile lives. The industry has changed. Testing laboratories are accredited. Deep excavations with lateral support and foundations are designed rationally. Much reclamation have been completed without the mud waves of the kind...