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Geotechnical News March 2011
GEO-INTEREST
• It is easy enough to understand how
loose fine sands can liquefy.
• It is difficult to imagine how gravel
sizes could be brought to liquefac-
tion either as a natural deposit, or as
a construction fill, however poorly
placed.
• It is even more difficult to figure out
how well graded materials of any
density could manage to fail in this
manner.
But a very interesting question aris-
es and remains to be answered, and that
is about silts. If this line of reasoning is
valid, then: Why aren’t silts even more
prone to liquefy than sands? Figure 6
suggests they scarcely need to budge at
all to reach their v
T
.
In the Next Article
The next step in the development
of this method of looking at the
interaction of water and discrete solids
is to show how C
D
can be viewed as
a geotechnical parameter. It is at this
stage that an answer to the question of
silt’s apparently inexplicable behaviour
will be first broached.
I will also provide values for the
“L-factor” which is the first of two
variables entering into the calculation
of pore water pressure magnitude. The
derivation of the L-factor is simple and
straightforward. I will leave until a lat-
er article the more complicated devel-
opment of what I call the “Crowding
Factor”. This K-factor is necessary to
extend the implications of single dis-
crete particle movements, presented so
far in relation to liquefaction, into the
much broader realm of real soils under-
going non-catastrophic deformations.
W.E.Hodge
Geotechnical Engineer
P.Eng., M.ASCE
P.O. Box 287, Lumby, BC, V0E 2G0
(778) 473 4505
Kenneth R. Peaker 1932-2010
Even fighting the effects of skin cancer,
Dr. Ken Peaker kept coming into work.
If asked how he was feeling, he’d
always say “Life is peachy”.
Ken Peaker died on June 27, 2010.
Ken was one of Bill Trow’s first part-
ners at Trow Associates. He would go
on to form two other geotechnical con-
sulting firms fairly late in life - Shaheen
& Peaker Limited, and just two years
ago – SPL Consultants Limited. Ken
had a rare combination of technical
acumen and keen business sense.
He had a humble start. Only five
when his mother died of cancer, he
and his brother Gary grew up in a prai-
rie foster home until they were almost
teenagers, when his father remarried
and reunited his family. They lived
without indoor plumbing or electricity
in Riverton, Manitoba until Peaker left
for the University of Manitoba, having
put himself through school on the avails
of trapping, fishing and a firewood busi-
ness. Ken was fortunate to be awarded
an Athlone Fellowship for post-gradu-
ate studies at Imperial College in Lon-
don, an award that would change his
life in many ways, the most important
of which was meeting his future wife
Lorna. Ken and Lorna were married in
Manchester, England in 1961.
Following his DIC in 1956 at Impe-
rial, he went on to study with the late
Professor Peter W. Rowe at the Univer-
sity of Manchester, where he received
his Ph.D. in 1964. Rowe and Peaker’s
work on passive earth pressures result-
ed in a change in the British Civil En-
gineering Code of Practice in retaining
wall design. Ken and school chum Don
Shields invented the first porous plastic
piezometer, which they fabricated in
their spare time between repairing mo-
torcycles and studying.
Active in consulting in Ontario, the
Caribbean and Middle East over his 45
year career, Ken advanced the practi-
cal application of geotechnics on many
landmark projects, including Ontario
Place, Scotia Plaza, Metro Convention
Centre, Ontario College of Art, Ground
Zero, to name a few.
Much of Ken’s involvement with the
Canadian Geotechnical Society (CGS)
was with the Canadian Geotechnical
Society - Southern Ontario Section
(CGS-SOS) group in Toronto. He was
the Chairman of the CGS-SOS for two
terms, in 1992-1993 and 1993-1994.
For his contributions to the CGS-SOS
over many years he was presented with
the CGS-SOS AWARD in 2008. Ken
was also awarded a Fellow of the En-
gineering Institute of Canada (FEIC) in
recognition of excellence in engineer-
ing practice and exceptional contribu-
tions to the well being of the profession
and to the good of the society.
Despite his unwavering resolve in
business, Ken was deep down, a shy
and unassuming individual who was
more comfortable on his weekend farm
with the family, than in the boardroom
- though he excelled at both. Ken and
Lorna have three children and seven
grandchildren. When cancer meant he
had an ear removed, he told a grand-
son he’d lost it in a pirate fight. When
he was hospitalized in the last couple
of months of his life, he never lost his
interest in the technical aspects of his
work.
He will be missed by all those that
had the good fortune to meet him.
