IN MEMORIAM

Tor Langfeldt Brekke

Professor of Geological Engineering, Emeritus

UC Berkeley

1934 – 2009

Along with his unique and much appreciated qualities as an eminent geological engineering educator and practitioner, Tor Brekke brought from his native Norway a remarkably considerate and friendly disposition that sparked his academic life and achievements. Throughout his career he proved to be a sympathetic and helpful mentor of students, as well as a convincing lecturer and teacher, and a congenial faculty colleague.

 

Tor Brekke was born on March 3, 1934, in Kristiansand in southern Norway. He was raised in Stabekk, a suburb of Oslo and, with his identical twin brother Jan, attended local schools. During the period of Nazi occupation, his father, a chemist, was sent away, and his mother resourcefully and courageously guided the family. After two years at the University of Oslo, Tor transferred to the Technical University of Norway in Trondheim, earning the degree Sivilingenior in mining engineering in 1958. After a stint as a private in the Norwegian Army’s Corps of Engineers, working on the design of airfields and civil structures, he resumed his education, supported as a research fellow at the Institute of Geological Engineering. After award of the degree Doktor Ingenior in geological engineering in 1963, he continued at Trondheim as a senior lecturer, and, during 1967, spent his first sabbatical leave as an academic visitor with the University of California, Berkeley's program in geological engineering (then in the Department of Mineral Technology).

 

In 1969, Dr. Brekke joined the faculty of the Department of Civil Engineering at Berkeley. He greatly enriched the geotechnical program with regard to technologies for development of underground space, and design and construction of engineering works founded on or within faulted or otherwise weak rock materials. His new courses and professional activities in these areas were distinguished, advancing the educational and research program at Berkeley, and ultimately extending the reach and achievements of the profession of civil engineering. With his graduate students, Professor Brekke researched design issues of significance to the underground construction industry. In a series of important coauthored publications, he discussed: swelling, squeezing, and slaking of shales in underground works, engineering classification of the difficult clayey materials and geologic structures to be found in tunneling through faults, measures to address stability problems and groundwater effects in tunneling, the possibilities for placing nuclear power plants underground, the seismic response of underground openings, design for pressure tunnels and shafts, storage of pressurized gas in unlined underground caverns, and evaluation of possibilities for underground storage of nuclear waste.

 

His expertise and research in these fields brought many requests for his advice in developing projects throughout the world, and his resulting participation as consultant on various aspects of some 200 engineering works informed and occasionally inspired his lectures, research, and publications. Some of the types of engineering design and construction projects on which Professor Brekke consulted are: underground power plants, which feature very large open caverns housing costly machinery; major highway tunnels through difficult terrain, including the Eisenhower Tunnel in Colorado and the Devil’s Slide tunnel on the coast south of San Francisco; the Washington Metro and other major subway systems; difficult and unusual hydroelectric projects; wastewater projects under the sea and a waste heat project under the river in Gothenburg, Sweden; and (as dessert?) wine tunnels in the Napa Valley.

 

Professor Brekke was a generous participant in the work and conferences of scientific and engineering societies, at different times including the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Association of Engineering Geologists, the International Association of Engineering Geologists, the United States Committee on Large Dams, the International Society for Rock Mechanics, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, & Petroleum Engineers, the Geological Society of America, the Rapid Excavation and Tunneling Congress, the Underground Construction Research Council, and the Clay Mineral Society. He served as chair of the U.S. National Committee on Tunneling Technology of the National Research Council. He was cofounder and an officer of the Geological Engineering Foundation, which raised funds to help Berkeley graduate students. He was also an active and dependably productive committee member for the Department of Civil Engineering and the College of Engineering.

This life of service to the University and the profession brought significant honors to Professor Brekke. For his excellence and commitment as a teacher, the UC Berkeley student chapters of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and Chi Epsilon named him Outstanding Faculty of the Year in 1971. He was elected to membership by both the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (1977) and the Norwegian Academy of Technical Sciences (1982). Also, in 1978 the Geological Society of America elected him a fellow and the Geotechnical Society of Colombia elected him an honorary member. In 2008, the United States Underground Construction Industry “in recognition of his exceptional contributions and dedication“ presented Tor Brekke its award as Outstanding Educator of the Year.

During his Norwegian university years, Tor had distinguished himself as a leader in student government, which not only maintained social facilities on campus, but operated dormitories and dining facilities. In his official meetings and assignments as a student officer, he met influential people (including the king of Norway), and began an enduring pattern of networking with interesting and involved people that continued throughout his life, culminating in active participation in the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. Together with his brilliant and athletic wife Joyce, whom Tor met as a Fulbright scholar from Oklahoma, Tor cultivated lifelong friendships with a great number of engineers, contractors, educators, associates, and neighbors. Tor and Joyce’s home on Yosemite Road in Berkeley and Tor’s office on campus became famous stopping places, especially for Scandinavians. Tor was always an outgoing, sympathetic, and engaging host, a raconteur with a repeatable set of charming and often humorous anecdotes and aphorisms (in four languages). He also proved to be a wise and thoughtful counselor and a wonderful friend.

Tor Brekke died in Berkeley on March 6, 2009. He is survived by his wife, Joyce, their sons Tor and Gunnar, and two granddaughters, Naomi and Monica.

 

 

              Richard E. Goodman                                                                    2010

              Nicholas Sitar