American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Outstanding Geotechnical Project in the State of California Region 9, 2017
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Outstanding Geotechnical Project in the State of California, 2009
ASCE OTC Hall of Fame Award, 2008
This award was presented to Robert C. Kirby by the American Society of Civil Engineers for Pioneering Innovation and Lasting Impact for OTC Paper 2942, May 1977, entitled “Application of Critical State Soil Mechanics to the Prediction of Axial Capacity for Driven Piles in Clay”.
The concepts presented in this paper formed the basis for a large, multi-year joint industry project that provided a major advance in the understanding of pile behavior in clay at a fundamental level. The paper advanced the use of two new and highly innovative ideas in pile analysis, the cavity expansion process and Cam-Clay theory, and it spawned a tremendous amount of industry research that ultimately led to the development of the improved pile capacity methods now in use.
Young Professional Award, Woodward-Clyde Consultants, 1985
The Professional Development Committee of Woodward-Clyde Consultants, a leading firm in geotechnical engineering, engineering geology, and environmental sciences at the time, recognized Guilaine L. Roussel for her work on the Merrill Creek Reservoir Project by naming her Woodward-Clyde Young Professional of the year at the annual shareholders meeting.
ASTM Hogentogler Award, 1980
The American Society of Testing and Materials, Committee D-18 on Soil and Rock for Engineering Purposes established the Hogentogler Award in honor of its first chairman. The award is given in recognition of a paper of outstanding merit on soils for engineering purposes presented before the Society.
This award was made to Robert C. Kirby for his paper entitled “Soil Capacity for Supporting Deep Foundation Members in Clay”.
Innovative Practice Award, Woodward-Clyde Consultants, 1978
The Professional Development Committee of Woodward-Clyde Consultants, a leading firm in geotechnical engineering, engineering geology, and environmental sciences at the time, recognized Robert C. Kirby with the Innovative Practice Award in recognition of his work on the development of improved methods for estimating the capacity of driven piles in clay based on the application of cavity expansion theory and critical state soil mechanics.
Invited Expert, Foundation Deformation Prediction Symposium, 1974
Robert C. Kirby was one of twelve experts invited to make predictions of the pore pressures, deformations and failure load for an embankment founded on Boston Blue Clay that was intentionally loaded to failure as part of research at MIT sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration. Each of the twelve participants was required to make these predictions prior to the embankment being loaded to failure. The results of the analyses by each participant were presented at a symposium attended by several hundred engineers. The final presentation of the day presented the actual field measurements and compared the measured to predicted performance.
Geotechnical Section Award, Boston Society of Civil Engineers, 1973
This award is given in recognition of an outstanding professional paper and was made in 1973 to T. William Lambe and Robert C. Kirby, co-authors of a paper entitled “The Performance of the Foundation under a High Embankment”.