William Joel Hall

In a 2003 survey in Structural Engineer magazine, William J. “Bill” Hall was named one of the six most legendary and important civil engineering educators of our time—and for good reason. In the fifty-plus years he has been a pioneering engineering professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC), he has been engaged in a wide range of creative research, instruction, and consulting projects dealing with structural dynamics, earthquake engineering, and structural design, as well as with the use of innovative structural materials. He has taught and mentored countless leading structural engineers in the profession today (Fig. 1).

In addition to his lasting impact on the engineering of transportation and pipeline structures, he was a leader in the development of universal design criteria for hardened protective structures such as military and missile facilities, chemical containers, and nuclear reactors. His work dealing with the effects of high explosives, nuclear blasts, and seismic occurrences—and the shock propagation they produced on surface and deep ground layers—were crucial in the design and construction of over seventy nuclear power plants built by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

One of Hall’s most satisfying moments in engineering manifested itself in 2002 when a major project he has long been connected with, the Trans Alaska Pipeline, survived a “design basis” earthquake—the magnitude 7.9 Denali Fault Earthquake of November 3—with flying colors. Said Hall, “It came through the ordeal without losing even a drop of oil, and with no buckles or wrinkles. There was about an eighteen-foot lateral displacement, a four-foot differential vertical movement, and the pipeline was shortened some six feet, with no damage! Some minor hardware dropped, just as designed. But it was easily put back in place.”

Hall was born on April 13, 1926, in Berkeley, California, the oldest of the three sons of E. Raymond and Mary Frances (Harkey) Hall. His mother was a botanist and his father a zoologist (more specifically a mammalogist). E. Raymond was a professor at the University of California at Berkeley from 1928 until 1944. He then moved back to the University of Kansas at Lawrence to chair its zoology department and to be director of the Dyche Museum of Natural History. He was the author or co-author of over five hundred cutting-edge papers and books, and was considered one of the top taxonomic mammalogists of the twentieth century.

Bill’s middle name came from his great grandfather Joel Hall, a Civil War hero who was wounded in the Stones River Battle in Tennessee in 1862 (shot six times). Three bullets were extracted—Hall still has them in a safe-deposit box—but three couldn’t be. Yet, remarked Hall, “He lived to a ripe old age in Kansas even with the other three slugs in him.” It was the topic of many family yarns while the Hall brothers were maturing. Another local color item for good-humored family telling emerged in 1939 when thirteen-year-old Bill won the gold medal for Jersey Cow Showmanship at the California State Fair in Sacramento.

Even more anecdotal material for such yarns materialized while Bill was still in high school and he went to work as a cowhand on a two-thousand-acre Hereford cattle ranch where its owner also bred and raised showcase Palomino horses. It was no “dude” ranch, though. Said Hall, “I was a real cowboy! Unless you’ve worked as a cowhand on a ranch it’s difficult to describe the immense range of duties this encompasses.”

Growing up during the Depression years, largely on a nine-acre miniranch in Lafayette, California (between Berkeley and Walnut Creek), the Halls were almost self-sufficient, growing their own vegetables and fruits and raising cows and chickens. Bill and his brothers earned extra money by working in the many orchards around their ranch. Hall said, “We learned the value of work ethics early, but we led a wonderful life as boys.”

Hall has a compelling photograph of himself and his two brothers (no sisters in the family) at the time, dressed in ragged jeans. When people look at it and say, “You were really poor back then, just look at you,” Hall’s ready reply is always, “I beg your pardon! We weren’t poor, we just didn’t have any cash!”

Today, Hall is quite proud of how his two younger siblings turned out. His middle brother Hubert became a senior exploration geologist for Exxon and lived overseas a good part of his life, while his youngest brother Benjamin (Ben) became a biochemist. He currently holds two titles at the University of Washington at Seattle (UWS), Professor of Botany and Genetics and Endowed Chair of the Washington Research Foundation in Basic Biological Science. He holds numerous patents and has a UWS building named after him.

During Bill’s adolescence, a spectacular civil engineering marvel was constructed in his area—the Golden Gate suspension bridge. News of its progress was reported daily in all the local newspapers, as were stories about its lead engineer and promoter Joseph Straus. Hall was fascinated with watching it take shape and, when he with his grandmother first crossed it a few weeks after opening day, a memory for life was etched in his mind.

Recalling this moment later in his life, Hall said, “At the time, I never dreamed I would go into engineering and someday chair a civil engineering department with the caliber of the University of Illinois.” The man most responsible for the engineering calculations and the actual design of the Golden Gate Bridge, Charles Ellis, was a prominent member of UIUC’s faculty. During his career at Illinois, Hall interfaced with not only Ellis’s work but with that of the likes of such U.S. engineering icons as Hardy Cross, Nathan Newmark, and Ralph Peck. All were leading UIUC professors and world-renowned engineers in Hall’s early days as a professor.

When Bill graduated from high school in 1943 and it was time to attend college, he had two major interests—agriculture and engineering. He applied to the school of agriculture at the University of California at Davis and at Iowa State University, and to the school of engineering at the University of California at Berkeley (UCB). He finally decided on mechanical engineering at UCB, where he completed his freshman year.

He then took a break from college and entered the U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps. He spent nine months in the Pacific—during the time of Saipan, Iwo Jima, and the bombing of Japan—then capped off his time in the service at the Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, New York.

In 1945, Bill enrolled at the University of Kansas to pursue a degree in civil engineering. While an upperclassman there, he served as a teaching assistant, and worked summers for the Kaw Valley Drainage District and the Phillips Petroleum Company in Kansas City. When he received his degree in 1948, he was honored with the ASCE (Kansas Section) award for the outstanding civil engineering graduate of the year.

After graduation, Hall became an engineer in the field and operations sections of the Sohio Pipeline Company, a subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company of Ohio. In December of 1948, he married Elaine Frances Thalman, an accomplished musician (pianist), from Kansas City, Missouri.

Shortly after, in 1949, Hall enrolled in graduate school at the University of Illinois, joining the staff of the Department of Civil Engineering. “Luckily, I was assigned to work in research under the great Nathan Newmark,” said Hall, who worked as a research assistant from 1949–1952. He then advanced to research associate (1952–1954), assistant professor (1954–1957), associate professor (1957–1959), and professor of civil engineering (1959–1993). Throughout that time and in those positions, he taught a heavy load of structural engineering and dynamics courses without having to abandon his main thrust, which was in research.

From 1984 to 1991, Hall was head of the Department of Civil Engineering. When he retired from the University on May 20, 1993, he was given his current title, Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering, and office space at the college for as long as he wants it.

Hall received his M.S. degree in civil engineering from UIUC in 1951, and his Ph.D. in 1954. His doctoral thesis dealt with the shearing behavior of wide-flange steel beams in the inelastic range, and the essence of it was published formally in ASCE’s 1957 Transactions.

In 1998, an executive with one of the largest engineering firms in the United States appeared in Hall’s office. He was in desperate need of another copy of Hall’s 1957 thesis paper. His ragged-eared copy had been “taken” from his library. He told Hall: “Your work has been used regularly, for the past forty years, in computing the effects of large load drops found in nuclear power plants, on ship decks, and in heavily loaded buildings. It is the only document available with the reliable factual data needed.”

Early in his teaching career at UIUC, Hall was put in charge of directing brittle fracture propagation studies in wide steel plates as part of a national effort to reduce ship fractures at sea and at berth, as occurred during WWII and after. His efforts helped eliminate and/or control such fractures in both naval and merchant ships. Among his other U.S. military projects—both under university contract and as a consultant—was the analysis of the strength (hardness) of protective structures, ranging from submarines to various above- and belowground structures.

In 1964, Hall and Newmark became heavily involved with the seismic resistance of nuclear power reactors, which resulted in the publication of a seminal U.S. government document, “Development of Criteria for Seismic Review of Selected Nuclear Power Plants.” It is still in wide use today. Then in 1969, the pair presented another classic paper on the subject at the Fourth World Earthquake Engineering Conference in Santiago, Chile. The formally published and widely distributed paper provided a simple method to compute and sketch design spectra.

In addition to his core duties as a UIUC professor, Hall carried significant departmental responsibility for graduate student and research affairs. He served on several high-level university policy committees and boards, including: the Graduate College Research Board, the Graduate College Executive Committee, the Research Management Advisory Committee (which he chaired), the Nonacademic Personnel Advisory Committee, the Campus Oversight Committee on Conflict of Interest; and the Campus Research Policy Committee. For many years he was chair of the University of Illinois–U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory Liaison Committee. He was a member of the UIUC Senate from 1990 to 1992.

Among his portfolio of noteworthy and leading-edge research projects were those for fatigue machine design; effects of blast forces on model submarine hulls; design, construction, and test operations of protective structures at U.S. military test sites; static and dynamic response of beams and connections; shear strength of steel beams; brittle fracture behavior of welded steel plates; properties of metals under static and dynamic loading conditions; shock effects on structures and equipment; seismic hazard evaluation; and earthquake engineering studies of structures and equipment.

In 1964, Hall was selected as one of five U.S. scientists and engineers to participate in the first Seminar on Brittle Fracture held in Tokyo, Japan, under the auspices of the U.S.–Japan Cooperative Science Program. (He later participated in a similar program in Japan on lifeline earthquake engineering in 1971.)

In 1965, he was one of thirty top U.S. scientists and engineers chosen to participate in the “Meet Modern Sweden” science tour sponsored by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering. One year later, he served as a member of the Commerce Technical Advisory Board Panel on High Speed Ground Transportation and was chairman of the Panel on Guideways, Suspension, and Aerodynamics. In 1978, he participated as a member of the U.S. delegation on earthquake engineering and hazards reduction that visited the Peoples’ Republic of China under the sponsorship of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to Hall, his most interesting ongoing consulting assignment began in 1970 when his mentor, colleague, and friend, Dr. Newmark “was chosen to be the intermediary between the U.S. Department of Interior and the oil companies in shaping the design, particularly as it related to the seismic design, of the Trans-Alaska Petroleum Pipeline.” Hall was brought on as a key member of the original design team, and has been a principal consultant on the project ever since (Figs. 2 and 3).

Hall’s participation on major national committees over the years is truly amazing—almost beyond comprehension. A complete list of them would be lengthy, indeed, so only a few representative committees are mentioned:

Hall is a licensed structural engineer (S.E.) in Illinois, and a licensed professional engineer (P.E.) in Illinois and California. Throughout his professional life, Hall has been an active member (oftentimes an officer) in many professional and scientific groups and societies. He is an honorary member of ASCE and a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), as well as several other engineering societies.

He is (or has been) a fellow and/or member in the American Concrete Institute, American Nuclear Society, American Society for the Advancement of Science, American Society of Engineering Education, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Welding Society, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Illinois Society of Professional Engineers, International Institute of Welding, National Society of Professional Engineers, Seismological Society of America, and Structural Engineers Association of Illinois (SEAOI).

Key chairmanships he has held in ASCE include Structural Division Executive Committee and Committee on Plasticity, Engineering Mechanical Division. In the Central Illinois Section of ASCE, he has been secretary, treasurer, vice-president, president, and director. He was the SEAOI Seismology Committee Chairman.

Hall serves (or has served) as a consultant to a number of industrial organizations and governmental agencies, including the U.S. Defense Agency, Army-Office of the Chief of Engineers, Army Waterways Experiment Station, Army Construction Research Laboratory, Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory, Navy Bureau of Ships and Office of Naval Research, and Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Non-U.S. government groups include Stanford Research Institute, Union Carbide Corporation/Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Foothills Pipelines, Western LNG Associates, TERA and TENERA Corporations, DuPont, EG&G-Idaho, and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

Community service activities include Hall serving as a commissioner—appointed by Illinois Governor James Thompson—on the Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility Commission, as a member of the Advisory Board of the University of Kansas Civil Engineering Department, and as a member of the Advisory Committee of the University School of Engineering.

Hall is author and/or co-author of more than 350 engineering articles, papers, and book chapters dealing with structural mechanics and dynamics, soil dynamics, earthquake engineering, plasticity, fatigue, brittle fracture mechanics, civil defense, and education. In addition, he is the author and/or co-author of several books. Two of his most highly used books are Brittle Fracture of Welded Plates (1967) and Earthquake Spectra and Design (1982). He is also the editor of a series of civil engineering and engineering mechanics textbooks for Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Among Hall’s numerous honors and recognitions are four awards from ASCE: the Walter L. Huber Research Award (1963), the E. E. Howard Award (1984), the Newmark Medal (1984), and the Norman Medal (1992). He is also the recipient of the Halliburton Engineering Education Leadership Award (1980) from the University of Illinois College of Engineering, the John Parmer Award (1990) from SEAOI, the C. Martin Duke Award (1991) from the Technical Council on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering, the Daniel C. Drucker Eminent Faculty Award (1993) from Tau Beta Pi and the University of Illinois, and the Housner Award (1998) from the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.

From his bachelor’s degree alma mater, the University of Kansas, he has received its College of Engineering Distinguished Engineering Service Award (1985). He was also selected as a University of Illinois Senior Scholar (1986–1989).

Enthusiastic about the profession of engineering, Hall believes: “The future of civil engineering looks bright and exciting. With infrastructure needing replacement, water quality and supply a problem nationally and worldwide, food for the world being a critical issue, need for new materials for manufacturing and construction, all aspects of energy up for grabs, medical applications needs (bioengineering), virtual analysis/design growing rapidly, etc., the sky is the limit. Professors and students, along with professionals, have unlimited opportunities to cooperate [and be leaders] in an almost open field.”

Hall and his wife Elaine have three children, Martha Sigler, James Hall, and Carolyn Vandendriessche, and four grandchildren. Although somewhat less active in them than in past years, the favorite hobbies of the Halls remain walking, gardening, traveling, fishing, and reading.