engineering

Harry Poulos

Harry Poulos is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Harry Poulos rather than just read about it. In short: Harry George Poulos (born 27 April 1940) is an Australian of Greek descent civil engineer specialising in geotechnical engineering and soil mechanics, internationally known as an expert on soil behaviour and pile foundations. Short biographical details Poulos graduated from the University of Sydney, where he took a bachelor's degree, BSc in 1961 and his doctorate, PhD in 1965.

Key takeaways

Harry Poulos belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Harry Poulos to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Harry Poulos from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Harry George Poulos (born 27 April 1940) is an Australian of Greek descent civil engineer specialising in geotechnical engineering and soil mechanics, internationally known as an expert on soil behaviour and pile foundations.

Short biographical details Poulos graduated from the University of Sydney, where he took a bachelor's degree, BSc in 1961 and his doctorate, PhD in 1965. His PhD research was supervised by Professor Edward H. Davis and was titled "The analysis of settlement of foundations on clay soils under three-dimensional conditions". During 1964–65, he was an engineer at MacDonald Wagner and Priddle. From 1965 he was Lecturer, Senior Lecturer in 1969, Reader in 1972 and from 1982, Professor at the University of Sydney, where he is now Professor Emeritus. In 1976 he was awarded a higher doctorate degree DSc from the University of Sydney.

Academic contributions Poulos has had enormous academic research contributions to the behaviour of piles.

International recognition In 1989 he delivered the 29th Rankine Lecture entitled "Pile behavior: theory and application", and in 2005, the Terzaghi Lecture, entitled Pile behavior: Consequences of geology and construction imperfections. Poulos was awarded in 1973, the J. James R. Croes Medal of ASCE, in 1995 the ASCE State of the Art of Civil Engineering Award, is an honorary member of ASCE since 2010. He was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal in 2001, the Warren Medal and the Warren Price (1985) of the Australian Institute of Civil Engineers and the 2007 Thomas A. Middlebrooks Award from the ASCE. He was appointed a member of the Order of Australia in 1993. In 1988 he received the John Jaeger Memorial Award. He was elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (1988) and the Australian Academy of Technical Sciences and Engineering (1996). In 2003 he became the Australian civil engineer of the year. Poulos served in the Australian Standards Committee for pile foundations (2010), was from 1980 to 1995 part of the Council of the Australian Geomechanics Society (AGS), was from 1982 to 1984 its president, and the Council of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) the vice president for the Asia-Australia region he was in 1989 to 1994. Since 2002 at the Sydney section of the AGS Poulos Lecture in his honour.

Consulting work

He has been involved worldwide in various basic construction projects, such as pile foundations for skyscrapers in Dubai (Burj Al Arab, Emirates Towers, the Burj Dubai, the tallest skyscraper in the world, where he performed the geotechnical testing), the Docklands Project in Melbourne, or 700 km (430 mi) Egnatia Odos motorway straight through Greece (2001 to 2005), where in particular the earthquakes played a role. Other projects included consultations with various offshore structures such as oil rigs. Since 1989 he has been an employee of Coffey Geotechnics, where he has held various management positions. He was from 1991 to 1993 on the executive board and today (2010) he is Senior Principal.

References

External links Homepage Biography from the Site of the Australian Engineers Archived 30 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine Biography

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Harry Poulos

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Harry Poulos claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Harry Poulos before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Harry Poulos ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Harry Poulos

In research: Harry Poulos appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Harry Poulos in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Harry Poulos is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1940 births, Academic staff of the University of Sydney, Australian civil engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Harry Poulos outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Harry Poulos in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Harry Poulos means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Harry Poulos out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Harry Poulos in simple terms?

Why does Harry Poulos matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Harry Poulos?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Harry Poulos.