San Jacinto Monument Case History
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VIEW THE REPLYPublication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 133, Issue 11
Abstract
The San Jacinto Monument was built in 1936 to commemorate the anniversary of the victory of the Texan army over the Mexican army. The victory at the battle of San Jacinto followed the defeat at the battle of the Alamo and secured the independence of Texas, as well as several other states along the Mexican border. The monument consists of a -high column resting on a large square mat with each . The mat foundation was designed by Raymond Dawson who chose an average pressure of under the mat. Dawson had settlement points placed on the mat foundation together with benchmarks away from the monument. The settlement of the monument has been recorded over the last and shows a total settlement to date of . The settlement appears to be almost complete. This remarkable case history is used to evaluate current practice of calculating consolidation settlement and a best approach is suggested for such structures. Other issues addressed include the depth of influence, the time rate of settlement, the elastic-modulus approach, and the ultimate bearing capacity.
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Acknowledgments
The writers wish to thank Fugro Consultants for sharing this very valuable data; in particular, we appreciated the cooperation of Philip King (now with Synchropile), and Joe Cibor. During the course of the study we talked to several people who had helpful comments. We wish to thank Ralph Peck, Ken Tand, Ed Ulrich, Don Murff, John Focht, Carl Fenske, Roy Olson, Wayne Dunlap, Bob Ringholz, and Steve Wright for their input. We also wish to recognize the vision of Raymond Dawson who helped our profession by instrumenting a major structure. We hope that such vision can be carried on by newer generations. The payoff may not be immediate, but it is often very valuable in the long term.
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History
Received: Jul 11, 2006
Accepted: Nov 10, 2006
Published online: Nov 1, 2007
Published in print: Nov 2007
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