Some Geotechnical Oddities

2022 Harry Poulos Award

Philip Pells

The Australian Geomechanics Society (Sydney Chapter) has established the Harry Poulos Award in recognition of the extraordinary impact of Professor Harry Poulos’s contributions to pile foundation analysis and design and his work in understanding soil-structure interaction. His research has enabled a more reliable approach to be adopted for pile design, replacing procedures that previously relied purely on experience and empiricism. He has been a prolific contributor to and supporter of the activities of the international and Australian geotechnical community. The award is presented annually to a person selected by the Sydney Chapter Committee as having made a significant contribution to either practice or research in foundation engineering or soil-structure interaction.

About the speaker

Philip Pells Recipient of 2022 (Inaugural) Harry Poulos Award

Philip qualified as Bachelor of Civil Engineering at the University of Cape Town in 1966 and received an MSc in soil mechanics from Imperial College in 1968. After a stint on a dam site, he joined Dick Bieniawski’s rock mechanics group at the CSIR in Pretoria until 1974, when he moved to Sydney as a lecturer in rock mechanics at Sydney University. At that time, Ted Davis headed up a powerful group of geotechnical specialists, including Harry Poulos, John Booker and Peter Brown, with PhD students including Laurie de Ambrosis, John Carter, John Small and Peter Redman. Philip moved to Coffey and Partners in 1981 and became manager for NSW. In 1993, he was awarded a DSc based on publications in the fields of foundations on rock, and tunnel design in the Triassic rocks of the Sydney area. That same year, he left Coffey and joined Tim Sullivan and Bill Meynink in setting up Pells Sullivan Meynink Pty Ltd, nowadays simply known as PSM. He remained at PSM until moving into semi-retirement in 2009 and proper retirement in 2020. His fields of specialisation were:

  • Tunnels and mining rock mechanics,
  • Earth and rockfill dams, and tailings dams,
  • Hydrogeology,
  • Mine subsidence,
  • Foundations, slope stability and design of stabilisation works, and
  • Haul road and heavy-duty pavements.

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