Last night after an entertaining and informative 57th Rankine Lecture delivered by Eduardo Alonso, the 58th Rankine Lecturer was announced at the Rankine Dinner.
In 2018 the Rankine Lecture will be delivered by Nick O'Riordan. Nick is an Arup Fellow and has been the Global Geotechnics Skill leader for Arup since 2009. He has over 30 years’ experience of ground-related risk management associated with contaminated and derelict land, earthquake and storm hazards and collapses of underground excavations.
Nick has worked on many aspects of soil/structure interaction ranging from offshore and high speed railway structures to the construction of embankments on very soft clays and the performance of piles in very stiff clays. Several of his projects have pioneered the use of embodied energy calculations and carbon footprinting of construction. He was the Ground Engineering Manager during the detailed design and construction of High Speed 1. Significant recent projects include the foundations for the new Mexico City Airport on very soft Lake Texcoco clays, Salesforce Tower (at 326 m, the tallest building in San Francisco), the nearby Transbay Transit Center substructure and the base-grouted piling for the new Gerald Desmond Bridge, Port of Long Beach, CA.
We look forward to his lecture already!