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Dr. Bengt H. Fellenius

Dr. Bengt H. Fellenius

Dr. Bengt H. Fellenius is an internationally active geotechnical consultant and professional engineer specializing in foundation studies by participation in project teams, special investigations, instrument field tests, and investigations of construction problems, claims, and litigation.

Bengt is a third generation geotechnical civil engineer. He is grandson of Wolmar Fellenius of slip-circle fame (who also chaired a committee of geologists and engineers that back in 1916 originated the word Geotechnique; in Swedish: "Geoteknik"), and he is son of Bror Fellenius, initiator and first Chairman of the Pile Commission of the Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Following army service, he enrolled in engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm from where he received a M.A.Sc. degree in 1962. After a few years of practice, first as a structural engineer with the Bridge Department of the Swedish Railroads and then as a geotechnical engineer with a consulting engineering firm, he joined the Swedish Geotechnical Institute. In parallel with his work, he completed a doctorate degree, Dr.Tech., at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.

Bengt left his native Sweden in 1972 for North America, where he first worked with a foundation contractor, Western Caissons Ltd., in Canada. Between 1973 and 1977 he was with Terratech (a Division of SNC-Lavallin), Montreal, and in 1977 he opened his own consulting office. In 1979, he moved to Ottawa, where he joined the University of Ottawa as professor in Civil Engineering specializing in foundations

Bengt has published more than 250 technical papers, articles, books, and book chapters. Most of these have dealt with piling and deep foundations, but he has also written on matters of broader interest. He has given numerous lectures and short courses in many parts of the world, and he is a member of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and is or has been active in many professional organizations, such as the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), the Canadian Geotechnical Society (CGS), and the Deep Foundation Institute (DFI).

In 1993, he received the Deep Foundation Institute’s Distinguished Services Award “for Exceptionally Valuable Contributions to the State-of-the-Art in Deep Foundations”. In 1997, he received the Canadian Geotechnical Society’s G. Geoffrey Meyerhof Award “for Outstanding and Significant Contributions to the Art and Science of Foundation Engineering. In 2002, he was elected Fellow of the EIC “in Recognition of Excellence In Engineering and for Services to the Profession and to Society”.