July 2014
BENGT H. FELLENIUS
Bengt H. Fellenius, Dr.Tech., P.Eng., formerly Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Ottawa, is an internationally active geotechnical consultant and professional engineer specializing in foundation studies. He is a third generation geotechnical civil engineer: grandson of Wolmar Fellenius of slip-circle fame (who also chaired a committee of geologists and engineers that back in 1916 originated the word Geotechnique; in Swedish: “Geoteknik”), and he is son of Bror Fellenius, Head of Geotechnical Department of the Swedish State Railways and Chairman of the Pile Commission of the Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.
Following army service, Bengt enrolled as a civil engineering student at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm from where he received a M.A.Sc. degree in 1962. After a few years of practice, first as a structural engineer with the Bridge Department of the Swedish Railroads and then as a geotechnical engineer with a consulting engineering firm, ScandiaConsult, he joined the Swedish Geotechnical Institute (SGI) as Research Engineer. In parallel with his work at the SGI, he completed a doctorate degree at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.
Bengt left his native Sweden in 1972 for North America, where he first worked with a foundation contractor, Western Caissons Ltd., in Canada. Between 1973 and 1977 he was with Terratech (a Division of SNC-Lavallin), Montreal, and in 1977 he opened his own consulting office. In 1979, he moved to Ottawa, where he joined the University of Ottawa as Professor in Civil Engineering specializing in foundations. He left the University in 1998 to concentrate on his international consulting practice. He is now living in Sidney, British Columbia.
Bengt has published more than 300 technical papers, articles, books, and book chapters. Most of these have dealt with piling and deep foundations, but he has also written on matters of broader interest. He has given numerous lectures and short courses in many parts of the world. He is Life Member of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and he is or has been active in many professional organizations, such as the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), the Canadian Geotechnical Society (CGS), and the Deep Foundation Institute (DFI). He was a charter member of the DFI and member of the DFI first Board of Directors.
In 1973, he was one of the first to apply geotextile soil separation sheets to stabilize roadbeds and construction surfaces, investigating conventional carpet underlay (Celanese) for this purpose. He was active in promoting to the US market the splicing of prestressed concrete piles by means of mechanical full-strength splices, and he introduced to Canada and the USA ground improvement applications of lime column method and wick drains (the Geodrain and Alidrain) for accelerating consolidation, stabilizing landslides, and reducing soil compressibility. He was one of the earliest (1977) to research and use dynamic testing and the Pile Driving Analyzer in actual project design and construction.
He also introduced the Janbu method of determining soil compressibility and analysis of settlement, and he had a fundamental part of the development of commercial software, such as UniSettle and UniPile, for analysis of settlement from loads on natural soils and soils subjected to soil improvement methods, and design for capacity and settlement of piled foundations. In 1984, he developed the method for design and analysis of foundations known as the “Unified Method of Design for Capacity, Drag Force, Settlement, and Downdrag”.
In 1985, he received the Canadian Geotechnical Society Recognition for Services to the Canadian Geotechnical Community”, in 1990, the ASTM Award for Service in Standards Development”, in 1993, the Deep Foundation Institute’s Distinguished Services Award “for Exceptionally Valuable Contributions to the State-of-the-Art in Deep Foundations”. In 1997, the Canadian Geotechnical Society’s “G. Geoffrey Meyerhof Award for Outstanding and Significant Contributions to the Art and Science of Foundation Engineering”, In 1999, he was the Hal Hunt Lecturer at the Deep Foundation Institute Meeting in New York. In 2002, he was conferred the Distinction of Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada “in Recognition of Excellence In Engineering and for Services to the Profession and to Society”, in 2010, he was the Osterberg Lecturer at the 2nd Annual Osterberg Memorial Lecture and Dinner, in 2012, ASCE published a Special Geotechnical Publication “Honoring Bengt H. Fellenius and Role of Full-scale Testing in Foundation Design”, in 2012, he was elected Honorary Member of the Swedish Geotechnical Society, in 2012, he was Sowers Lecturer at the 15th Annual George F. Sowers Symposium, Atlanta, GA, in 2014, he was John Mitchell Lecturer for the DFI-EFFC DFI-EFFC International Conference on Deep Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden.
Announcement on call-for-papers September 2018
Dr. Bengt H. Fellenius – CV
Publications by Bengt H. Fellenius
