Prof. Sven Hansbo will approach 90 years in December 2014. He still visits SE Asia regularly and gives lectures in Hanoi and other locations. His contributions in the use of Vertical Drains are legendary. In 2013 he gave Key Note Lectures on Deep Compaction and comparison between conventional and creep pile design. Prof. Hansbo organised the 1981 International Conference in Stockholm.
Prof Sven HANSBO had his civil engineering education at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, 1945–1949. He was then employed as structural engineer at the Harbour Office in Gothenburg and was, among other things, responsible for the design of the first pre-stressed bridge, type Freyssinét, in Sweden. He was examined Licentiate of Technology in 1956 with a thesis named ‘The critical load of rectangular frames analysed by convergence methods’. He was then employed at the Swedish Geotechnical Institute and was mainly engaged in two research projects, one on interpretation of the fall-cone test results and the other on evaluation of results obtained in full-scale field tests. The latter results were published as a Doctoral Thesis, named ‘Consolidation of clay, with special reference to influence of vertical sand drains. A study made in connection with full-scale investigations at Skå-Edeby’ published in 1960. In 1961, he was employed as head of the new-started geotechnical department at the consulting firm Jacobson & Widmark (J&W), and was elected in 1964 as Professor of Geotechnical and Foundation Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology (CTH).
Prof. Hansbo has been one of the leading Swedish consultants in geotechnical engineering during his work as professor at CTH and consultant at J&W. He has published several textbooks, among them 4 in Swedish and 3 in English (Foundation Engineering, 519 pp, Elsevier 75 in 1994; Ground Improvement, 139 pp. Elib. and Fundamentals of Geotechnology, 173 pp. Elib.). He has published more than 100 papers at International Geotechnical Conferences and in Scientific Publications (Géotechnique, Ground Improvement, etc.) and has been engaged as state-of-the-art reporter. He was President of the Swedish Geotechnical Society 1974–1982, Vice President of the Swedish Civil Engineering Society 1980–1982 and President of the Swedish Civil Engineering Society 1982–1985. He was Chairman of the organising committee of the International Conference of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering in Stockholm, 1981.
Prof. Hansbo has received the Price of Honour of the Stockholm Building Society for ‘A new approach to development of the compensation method applied in foundation on friction piles’ and also the Price of Honour of the Swedish Geotechnical Society. He has received ‘The golden award of merits of the Academic Senate of the Warsaw Agricultural University’ and a Medal for his contribution to the scientific cooperation between Chal¬mers University of Technology and Polytechnica Gdanska.
