Proceedings of the Institution of

Civil Engineers
Geotechnical Engineering 149
April 2001 Issue 2
Pages 71^74
Paper 12525
Received 02/01/2000
Accepted 23/01/2000
Keywords:
transport planning/tunnels &
tunnelling

Ralph B. Peck
Professor Emeritus,
University of Illinois

The observational method can be simple

R. B. Peck
This paper describes three examplesthe Chicago
Subway, the Cleveland OreYard and the Newport News
Shipwaywhere quite simple field observations led to
substantial improvements. These projects were forerunners in the application of the observational method and
they reveal how elemental theory and qualitative predictions form the essence of the observational method.
1. INTRODUCTION
In a draft version of the introduction to Soil Mechanics in
Engineering Practice,1 Terzaghi, in 1945, wrote:
In the engineering for such works as large foundations, tunnels, cuts,
or earth dams, a vast amount of effort and labour goes into securing
only roughly approximate values for the physical constants that
appear in the equations. Many variables, such as the degree of
continuity of important strata or the pressure conditions in the water
contained in the soils, remain unknown. Therefore, the results of

basis, it is instructive to recall how the tunnelling was done and

how quite simple eld observations led to substantial improvements.
2. CHICAGO SUBWAY
Construction was already in progress (Fig. 1) when, as
Terzaghi's representative on the job, I arrived to supervise the
boring and sampling operations and to set up a soils laboratory.
Tunnelling had already started under compressed air at the
Chicago Avenue Station on North State Street by the handmined rib-and-liner-plate method previously developed by the
Chicago Sanitary District for constructing its large interceptor
sewers. Excavation by clay knives, cutting slices from the
various working faces, and support, consisting of steel liner
plates held in place by steel ribs resting on clay-supported
footings, gave ample opportunity for loss of ground. At the
ground surface the progress of tunnelling could be followed by
observing the settlement through that developed over the

computations are not more than working hypotheses, subject to

conrmation or modication during construction.
In the past, only two methods have been used for coping with the
inevitable uncertainties: either to adopt an excessive factor of safety,
or else to make assumptions in accordance with general, average
experience . . . .
The rst method is wasteful; the second is dangerous. Soil mechanics,
as we understand it today, provides a third method which could be
called the experimental method. [Terzaghi's term `experimental
method' had unintended connotations of lack of adequate planning
and design.] The procedure is as follows: Base the design on whatever
information can be secured . . . . On the basis of the results of . . .
measurements, gradually close the gaps in knowledge and, if
necessary, modify the design during construction.
Soil mechanics provides us with the knowledge required for practical
application of this `learn-as-you-go' method.

This version of part of the manuscript of our textbook became

the theme of my 1969 Rankine Lecture,2,3 in which I elaborated
on several examples. It did not occur to me at that time that
what I came to call the observational method had been at the
heart of Terzaghi's approach on the Chicago Subway project,
and that the notably benecial results had come about without
any formal framework or any application of theory. To get a
conception of what was accomplished on such an informal
Geotechnical Engineering 149 Issue 2

Fig. 1. The Chicago Subway, 1939

The observational method can be simple

Peck

71

advancing tunnel and by watching the workmen turning the

screw jacks used to underpin the front walls of the two- to
three-storey buildings lining the street. Disruption of street-car
operations was serious, damage to buildings extensive. Yet,
efforts to convince the contractor that his operations were
responsible for avoidable damage fell on deaf ears. The
distressing movements, he argued, were simply the inevitable
consequence of building a tunnel; there was nothing he could
do about it.
Terzaghi visited the project every three to four weeks in its
early stages. Instead of offering opinions about the causes of
the settlements, he suggested that we should attempt some
simple measurements inside the tunnel while the work
progressed. As soon as it became possible, we should drive pins
through holes in the liner plates into the clay at the same
elevation on each side of the tunnel, measure the cross-tunnel
distance between the pins, and repeat the measurements from
time to time. We should similarly determine, by surveyor's
level, the elevation of the bottom of the stakes driven upward
from the crown of the tunnel. And we should, when the
opportunity presented itself between shifts, drive spearheads
ahead of the face, determine their position with respect to a
xed point back in the tunnel, and repeat the measurements
when the spearheads were about to be encountered by the
advancing face. We carried out these measurements for a
complete mining cycle, kept records of the position of the faces
of the various drifts, and recorded the air pressure and all the
other observable occurrences in the tunnel. In the meantime, on
the street above the operations, settlements of the street-car
tracks and sidewalks were measured. By the time of Terzaghi's
next visit we had assembled all this information graphically, as
the result of what we came to call a `squeeze test'.
Although our results were far from precise, they permitted a
rough calculation of the volume of the inward movement of the
periphery of the tunnel and of the face, a value that we could
compare with that of the settlement at the street surface during
a given interval of time. The two volumes proved to be
approximately the same. No longer could the contractor claim
that the settlements were unrelated to his operations. With this
fact established, the contractor and the other contractors, who
soon started their portions of the subway, began to experiment
with different construction procedures that appeared likely to
reduce loss of ground. They asked us to carry out similar
observations for them and, before long, started their own
investigations.
The twin tunnels of the rst contractor reached the limits of his
contract before many of the renements suggested by the
squeeze tests were implemented. The total settlement of the
centre of the street amounted to about 9 in. When a second
contractor, constructing tunnels of the same size by the same
general method but by procedures carefully rened on the basis
of his squeeze tests, reached the boundary between the
contracts, operations had caused a settlement of only 3 in. On
the rst contract, the settlements at the building line were
enough to cause considerable distress but, on the second, the
damage was insignicant. Thus, without the use of any theory,
a quantitative observational approach led to a substantial
improvement in the tunnelling operations.
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Geotechnical Engineering 149 Issue 2

The liner-plate tunnels were constructed in an area of old, light

buildings north of the Chicago River. South of the river the
alignment passed beneath the Chicago Loop area, the heart of
the city's shopping district. Here the consistency of the clays, as
measured by the unconned compressive strength, was roughly
only half of that at corresponding elevations in the North State
Street section. It was obvious that the tall heavy downtown
buildings, many supported on shallow footings, would suffer
intolerable damage even if the best liner-plate construction
were used. Thus, the simple observational data that led to the
best techniques for liner-plate construction, coupled with the
quantitative compressive-strength data, demonstrated clearly
that a more secure method, such as the use of tunnelling
shields, would be required in the Loop. This was a major
decision; it was based directly on the settlement observations
associated with the best liner-plate construction, and the
measured inferior strength of the clay in the Loop. Theory did
not enter into the decision.
As the project progressed, there were many more sophisticated
studies, including measurements of loads in the temporary
bracing in tunnels and propped cuts and the construction of
two full-scale test sections. Yet the important decisions were
made, not on the basis of the ndings from the test sections
and the corresponding advances in theory, but on the
compelling evidence from very simple eld observations. The
theoretical advances, as presented in three publications, one
each concerning the open cuts, the liner plate tunnels, and the
shield tunnels came laterin time for use on extensions to the
construction after the Second World War.
3. CLEVELAND ORE YARD
The Second World War halted subway construction but it led to
several other applications of the observational method. Even
before the Chicago Subway work ended, steel manufacturers
were expanding their facilities to meet the demands of the war
effort. The Defense Plant Corporation had started construction
of new facilities along the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio
(Fig. 2), which included a large storage yard in which to pile
the iron ore, to a planned height of 75 ft, that was needed for
supplying the blast furnace during the winter months when the
Great Lakes would be frozen over. During pile driving for the
ore-retaining walls, difculties were encountered, and I was
asked to visit the site. As I watched the test boring operations
and examined samples of the underlying clay being obtained, I
felt concern that the entire structure retaining the ore might
experience a bearing-capacity failure and slide into the river. A
rough calculation, based on my estimate of the unconned
compressive strength of the clay, indicated a factor of safety of
about 06. When I expressed my concern to the chief engineer,
he agreed that it sounded logical and asked what could be done
about it. I was at a loss and suggested that he call Terzaghi. He
did, not telling Terzaghi that I had made the suggestion, and
Terzaghi made an estimate with similar results. But Terzaghi
had noticed a feature I had overlooked. The river owed on the
oor of a broad valley that it had eroded in a deposit of sand
about 120 ft thick. The sand formed bluffs around the valley
that stood at slopes of about 358, yet there appeared to be no
signs of instability, such as incipient bearing-capacity failures.
This gave Terzaghi hope that the clay, obviously consolidated
by the sand before the valley was eroded, might be stronger
than the samples suggested. Terzaghi proposed that construc-

The observational method can be simple

Peck

Fig. 2. Cleveland Ore Yard, July 1942

tion proceed, that a stability study be made on the basis of

thin-walled tube samples similar to those taken on the Chicago
Subway, that I test the samples in the same manner, that ore be
stored on completion of the ore yard, and that I be retained to
set up a programme of eld observations to measure the lateral
movements and tilts of the retaining walls, the pore pressures in
the clay and the load per unit area of the iron ore. Terzaghi's
intention was to place the ore to the maximum height that did
not result in progressive movements, thereby improving the
clay foundation by consolidation; in short, not to place trust in
stability calculations when the results were indecisive and when
much was at stake, but to let the structure speak for itself
through its behaviour. This was unquestionably a pure
application of the observational method. The risk of failure was
eliminated; the only risk was that the capacity of the ore yard
might initially be less than desired for steel production.
4. NEWPORT NEWS SHIPWAY
Although the Chicago Subway project proted greatly by the
use of timely interpretation of eld observations and was thus a
forerunner of the application of the observational method,
another of Terzaghi's consulting assignments, the Newport
News Shipway, was a much more signicant step inasmuch as
the designers and constructors of the facility planned from the
beginning to take advantage of any possibility to accelerate
construction by capitalising on every favourable characteristic
of the site and by providing no higher a margin of safety than
was demonstrably necessary. The project is well documented in
the literature but it has not received the recognition it deserves.
In brief, the project consisted of constructing two side-by-side
shipways or drydocks, one 950 ft by 130 ft, the other 1000 ft by
142 ft, for building cruisers and destroyers for the US Navy
during the Second World War. Instead of the massive concrete
Geotechnical Engineering 149 Issue 2

walls and thick concrete

oors of conventional drydocks, the walls consisted of
steel sheet-pile cells lled
with the marl excavated to
make the basins. The oors
consisted of concrete slabs
about 6 ft thick supported on
timber piles, quite inadequate
to balance the hydrostatic
uplift, calculated on the
assumption that the uplift
pressure on the slab corresponded to sea level. The
somewhat unconventional
design and the unconservative assumptions were predicated on the satisfactory
performance of similar but
smaller installations under
generally comparable soil
conditions elsewhere in the
shipyard. The marl lling of
the cofferdam cells proved to
have insufcient strength and
rigidity; this deciency was
corrected by installing sand
drains in the cells, bailing
water from them and thereby consolidating the ll. Excessive
external lateral pressure against the cellular sheet-pile walls
was reduced by replacing the original marl backll by gravel,
covering the gravel by marl to enclose it and draining the
encapsulated gravel. These measures proved to be successful.
Emptying the smaller and shallower of the two basins was
monitored by Bourdon gauges installed to measure the
hydrostatic uplift on its base. The uplift was found to be
excessive and to require drain wells in the underlying marl.
This was accomplished successfully.
The crucial test, however, was thought to be the rst
unwatering of the deeper shipway, beneath which the uplift
pressures were to be monitored by Bourdon gauges and
observation wells. Terzaghi planned to be on hand to supervise
the measurements and to interpret the results. Unfortunately,
the attack on Pearl Harbour took place just as the unwatering
was to occur and Terzaghi, who did not yet have his nal US
citizenship, was not permitted to leave his home. Even the best
efforts of the Navy, although vitally interested in the work,
were of no avail. In desperation, Terzaghi asked me to pinchhit. I was able to take time off from the subway job and I spent
several days in a rowboat reading the Bourdon gauges,
telephoning the results to Terzaghi and listening to the
discussions by phone between Terzaghi and his clients. The
uplift pressures proved to be satisfactorily low, Terzaghi was
soon able to resume his active role and I was rewarded by
inclusion thereafter in correspondence concerning the behaviour of the shipways. Much of the pressure relief that
enhanced the stability of the base slab was caused by the small
seepage that occurred around the periphery of the slab at the
interlocks of the sheet-piles forming the cells that constituted
the shipway walls. This benecial effect would have gone
unexplained had it not been for the pressure observations.

The observational method can be simple

Peck

73

5. CONCLUSION
These early examples provided `best-way-out' scenarios for
eld situations that had already developed. They did not
represent ab initio incorporation of the method into the designs
or contracts. Moreover, public tolerance of the inconvenience
of construction activities was far greater than today. The
Chicago Subway project, during the Great Depression, brought
work, both on and off the project itself, to job-hungry citizens,
to suppliers and to general merchants. Repairs to buildings and
streets merely created new jobs. The ore-yard and shipway jobs
were emergency measures in preparation for involvement in a
great world war; again, changes for the better, especially if they
accelerated completion, were welcomed contractually. Thus,
these early examples of the observational method lacked some
of the considerations of environmental and contractual issues
characteristic of more recent applications.
In each of these examplesand there were othersthe

observational method paid-off handsomely, without more than

the most elemental theory and with only qualitative predictions. There were few renements, and no elaborate computer
modelling to be `validated' by exotic remote-reading sensors.
These renements are not the essence of the observational
method. They have their place but they should not deect
attention and resources from the essence of the method.

REFERENCES
1. TERZAGHI K. and PECK R. B. Soil Mechanics in Engineering
Practice. John Wiley, New York, 1996 [1948].
2. INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS. The Observational Method in
Geotechnical Engineering. Thomas Telford, London, 1996.
3. PECK R. B. Advantages and limitations of the observational
method in applied soil mechanics. Geotechnique, 1969, 19,
No. 2, 171187.

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The observational method can be simple

Peck