The Osterberg Lecture

Professor Ian Moore of Queen’s University in Canada presented the Osterberg Lecture on March 29, 2017.  His lecture, entitled ”The Days the Earth Doesn’t Stand Still: Pipeline Response to Imposed Ground Motion”, discussed a fragment of his many contributions to date to the analysis, design, and rehabilitation of pipelines. His lecture focused specifically on experiments aimed at investigating the behavior of pipes when subjected to ground motion, such as the lateral and vertical displacements induced by landslides, faults, and frost heave. These findings provide guidance to pressure pipeline design, rational design procedures for pipe joints, and physical evidence to support the development of 2D and 3D computer models for complex ground-movement problems.

Professor Moore was trained in Australia and has held the Canada Research Chair in Infrastructure Engineering at Queen’s University since 2001. An expert on the behavior and design of buried pipes, Dr. Moore has contributed to North American and other codes, design and construction practices for culverts, sewers, manholes, liners, storm-water detention chambers and pressure pipe systems. Other activities include editorship of the Canadian Geotechnical Journal and the Canadian Foundation Engineering Manual, and keynote lectures in North America, Asia, Europe, Africa and Australia. Dr. Moore’s work has been recognized with various honors, including the John B. Stirling Medal of the Engineering Institute of Canada, the John R. Booker award of the International Association for Computer Methods and Analysis in Geomechanics, and best paper awards from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Canadian Geotechnical Society, the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, and the North American Society for Trenchless Technology. Dr. Moore is an elected fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. Since 2002 he has been Executive Director of the GeoEngineering Centre at Queen’s – RMC, North America’s largest GeoEngineering research team and one of the leading such groups internationally.

The Osterberg Lecture is given in honor of Professor Jorj O. Osterberg. Professor Jorj Osterberg was raised in the Bronx borough of New York City.  He attended Columbia University where he received his BS in 1935.  While at Columbia his interest was accelerated by the new field of soil mechanics.  He attended Harvard University to study with Professor Arthur Casagrande for his MS degree and then went on to enroll in the Ph.D. program at Cornell University.  Professor Jorj Osterberg was the Stanley F. Pepper Professor of Civil Engineering at Northwestern University from 1943 until 1985.  Professor Osterberg’s first project was to build the soil mechanics laboratory.  He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1975 for his contributions to soils and foundation engineering through research, teaching, practice and professional leadership.