HANS-DETLEF KREY AND THE EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH

TO SOIL MECHANICS

EDGARSCHLJLTZE,
Dr Ing.

Coulomb’s brilliant achievement in formulating the theory of earth pressure and the law
of shear kept his successors supplied with material for elaboration and application for over
a hundred years, before technical development produced new concepts that went beyond the
range of Coulomb’s work and laid the foundations of soil mechanics in the modern sense.
Among the investigators responsible for this advance, Krey occupies a prominent position.
He virtually created the Versuchsanstalt fiir Wasserbau und Schifbau (Hydraulic and Marine
Engineering Experimental Station) in Berlin, where he conducted what were among the very
earliest systematic investigations in the field of soil mechanics.
Krey came of peasant stock whose descent can be traced from the 14th century in the
marshland on the German Baltic coast. He was a second son and was born, on the 8th October
1866, on the family holding at Osterbiinge, near St. Margarethen, in Schleswig-Holstein.
After the village school, he attended, from 1879 to 1886, the Grammar School at Altona, near
Hamburg. From 1886 to 1891 he studied civil engineering at the Munich Institute of Tech-
nology, where he eked otit the slender means the family were able to contribute, by rigorous
economy and spare-time earnings. After completing his course of studies, he joined a Berlin
firm of building contractors. Then he decided on a civil service career. To this end he had to
embark on several years’ training on public works, including a river-control project, and in 1896
he obtained his first public appointment as a public works’ engineer. This took him first to
his ancestral homeland on the North Sea coast, which gave him the opportunity to become
acquainted with the problems of sea defence works and harbour works, and in 1901 he was
given an appointment at the headquarters of the Public Works Department in Berlin.
For the ensuing five years in Berlin he also worked as assistant to Professor Miiller-Breslau.
the famous holder of the Chair of Statistics at the Berlin-Scharlottenburg School of Engineer-
ing Science. It is significant for Krey’s subsequent development, that Miiller-Breslau was
at that time working on his well-known book* on the subject of the earth pressure on retaining
walls, which appeared in 1906, and which applied Coulomb’s theory of earth pressure to
complex conditions, such as those presented by irregular configurations of walls and ground
sites, varying loads, etc., and for the first time made use of the concept of curved lines of
displacement in combination with Kiitter’s Law for the solution of earth-pressure problems.
Miiller-Breslau also gave an account in his book of the earth-pressure experiments which he
carried out on what was at that time considered a very large scale, involving the use of a box
measuring 0.75 metre by 1 metre, with a tiltable model retaining wall, using sloping earth
surfaces and varying loads on horizontal earth surfaces. These extremely carefully conducted
experiments were supplemented by excellent photographs showing the shifting of sand in
response to the tilting of a wall in a glass-sided container.
It appears that it was during the course of this association that Krey for the first time gained
fuller insight into problems of earth pressure on which he later wrote a paper of his own which
appeared, six years after Miiller-Breslau’s book, first in a technical. joumallt and later, ex-
panded, as a book.2

l MILLER-BRESLAU, H. F. B., 1906. Erddvuckauf Stutzmauern. (Earth Pressureon RetainingWalls.)

Alfred Kvciner- Verlag, Stuttgart. 2nd ed., unaltered,1947.
t Referencesto the works of Hans-Detlef Krey are given on p. 96.
93
G

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 94 SCHULTZE

Meanwhile, Krey had been put in charge of the Office of Canals at Liinen in Westphali&
where he was concerned for some time with the early stages of the projects for the building of
the Mittelland Canal, the Lippe Branch Canal, and the union canals to the industrial centres.
Four years later he was appointed Regimngs- und Baurat (Superintending-Engineer) and in
1910 was put in charge of the Vetsuchsanstalt fiir Wasserbau und Schifbau (Hydraulic and
Marine Engineering Experimental Station) on the Schleuseninsel in the Berlin Tiergarten,
which had then only recently been established and was still at a very modest stage of develop-
ment. The rest of the staff con&ted of an elderly public works’ engineer, two clerks, a fore-
man, and a few workmen. The available funds were so restricted that experiments were
seldom possible except on a small scale. Nevertheless, some hydrodynamic tests carried out
there soon aroused public interest and, as a result, commissioned tests brought in sufficient
funds to enable the station to expand.
Krey’s subsequent appointment to another post was probably not intended as a mark of
recognition or of honour, but rather as the official reaction to the candid exercise of a keenly
critical mind. This fact, together with his experience and knowledge, both theoretical and
practical, resulted in the rise to fame of the organization over which he had presided, while
his qualities of inspiration and leadership moulded his fortuitous group of collaborators into
a band of devoted and independent spirited scientists. Long after his death, his former
colleagues were heard speaking of him in terms of deep regard as a man whose qualities they
revered.
Because of the fact that the Station had at that time no soil mechanics section, the first
edition of Krey’s book, and also the second edition, which appeared in 1918, is largely concer-
ned with calculations on sheet-piling which was then gaining importance in the field of
earthworks and subterranean and sub-aqueous engineering. In addition, the book contains
calculations of the load-bearing capacity of single piles, in accordance with the theory of earth
pressure and of the distribution of the forces to which pile structures are subjected. Krey’s
treatment of these problems was novel and went beyond the scope of Miiller-Breslau’s work,
But, apart from this, it was the earth-pressure tables which established the outstanding reputa-
tion of Krey’s book. In the considerably expanded third edition (1926), the theoretical
foundations of the subject of earth pressure are dealt with in great detail and particular atten-
tion is devoted to the tension conditions at marginal plasticity, which Krey expounded with the
aid of stress ellipses.3 The arcuate planes of displacement are used for determining passive
earth pressure, and the resistance of walls and buttress foundations to rupture at ground level
is considered as a problem connected with earth resistance. It was from this presentation
that the well-known formulae for calculating the load-bearing capacity of flat foundations
were later developed. Krey himself used graphic methods but did not lay down any definite
equations. Cohesion also enters into the calculations 4 and, in view of the subsidences in
the Gothenburg quay-wall, the method based on arcs of displacement is extensively discussed.
The publication of the third edition of Krey’s book was preceded by papers on specific
questions in scientific joumals.s> 4l 6
Owing to the great amount of building and civil engineering work undertaken after the
first world war, during which Krey had been called to office in a government department and
entrusted with the carrying out of road, railway, and bridge construction in East Prussia,
Poland, Transylvania, and Roumania, experimental work on soil mechanics received a power-
ful impetus, in spite of the interruption imposed by the war, and the requirements of the time
led to a considerable expansion of the Station. At the same time, the successful scientific
work carried out by the Station resulted in a steadily increasing number of commissions
from other countries.
In order to be able to answer questions relating to soil mechanics, which were coming more
and more into the foreground in connexion with harbour and dam projects, Krey began, at first
on a modest scale, to conduct experiments designed to provide at least a basis for calculation

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 HANS-DETLEF KREY 95
and assessment. The large number of commissions that were received after it became
known that this work was in progress made it necessary, in 1927, to establish a separate soil
mechanics department which made a name for itself in the very first years of its existence by
reason of its work in connexion with the subsiding Columbus quay-wall at Bremerhaven and
the Shannon hydra-electric power station in Ireland. Even in its early years, this department
was carrying out investigations into the stability of high canal dams, the risk of .Iandslide in
the banks of deep cuttings in clay soil, and the suitability of various kinds of soil for use as
sealing and backing-up material and as building material for dams. The statics of sheet-
piling and curved planes of displacement received further attention and development*.
In his works that appeared in 1996 (the 3rd edition of the book e and an article 5), Krey
mentions for the first time the soil mechanics experiments that had in the meantime been
carried out at his Station, and gives a description of his shear device-one of the first ever
made-of which there were, by 1926, already seven in use. Replicas of this apparatus were
subsequently supplied to a large number of soil mechanics laboratories both in Germany and
abroad. In 1933, Krey’s pupil Tiedemann, who died in 1945, brought out the first shear
testing appliance of the annular type.7 Krey also continued the photographic experiments
on earth pressure started by Miiiler-Breslau and extended them to investigations into the
load-bearing capacity of flat foundations. In 1927, he produced a Paper on slip-prone and
non-cohesive soils,6 in which he defined his position with regard to the more recent views on
shear resistance, and expounded the application of these views to the question of the stability
of embankments. This concluded Krey’s published work in the field of soil mechanics.
For the fourth edition of Krey’s book (1932) the work was revised and expanded, after
Krey’s death, by his collaborator Ehrenberg. The fifth edition appeared in 1936, unaltered
except for a few additions. After Ehrenberg’s death in 1945, there was no-one left to continue
the work, since Krey’s most able pupil, Ohde, had also died.
In addition to his publications in the field of soil mechanics, Krey devoted himself with
great versatility to questions of waterworks and harbour engineering, such as the cross-
sectional design of ship canals, stony-bed water-courses, lock design (in which connexion he
developed a method of eliminating by-passes), and the hydrodynamic phenomena which
occur when a tidal wave enters an estuary or river mouth. In spite of the facts that the nm-
ning of the Station kept him very fully occupied and that he did not live long enough to carry
out many of the plans he had in mind, Krey’s publications reached the impressive number of
about 50.
At the suggestion of Engels, the founder of experimental hydraulic engineering, the Dresden
College of Technology awarded Krey, in 1926, a doctorate honoris causa. In 1991, he was
given the Civil Service title of Oberregierungsrat, and in 19!27 he was appointed an Honorary
Professor of the Berlin College of Technology, where he lectured on experimental hydraulic
engineering. In 1926, Krey was awarded die Medaille firr kervorragende Leistungen im
Bauwesen (a medal for outstanding achievement in civil engineering), and in 1928 he became a
full member of the Akedemie fiir Bauwesen (the German civil engineering academy), this being
the year in which, after a serious illness, he died. Two years after his death, a distinguished
American colleague, John R. Freemann, commissioned a bronze plaque in Krey’s memory
which, after the second world war, was recovered from the ruins of the Station’s buildings and
has now been replaced in its original position. The first of the buildings of the Station to be
rebuilt since the war (it now forms part of the Berlin Technical University) has been named
the ” Hans-Detkf-Krey-Halle.”
l EHRENBERG, J., and TIEDERMANN, B., 1928. Baugrundfwschung. Uber Werdegang. Aufgaben
und Arbeiten dcr Erdbauabteilung d. Staatl. Vevsuchsanstalt f. Wasserbau und Schiflbau in Berlin.
(Building Site Investigation. An account of the origin, aims, and work of the Berlin State Inst. of Hydr.
and Marine Eng.) Zentralblatt der Bauverwaitung. 48 : 287.
t TICDEYANN, B., 1937. Uber die Schnbfestigheit bindiger BBden. (On the Shear Resistance of
Cohesive Soils.) Bautechnik. 15 : 400 and 433.

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 96 SCHULTZE: HANS-DETLEF KREY

REFERENCES
1. KREY, H.-D., 1912. Praktische Beispiele z. Bewertung ZJ.Erddruck, Erdwiderstand und Tragfihigkeit d.
Baugrundes in grdsserer Tiefe. (Practical Examples for the Evaluation of Earth Pressure, Earth
Resistance, and Load-Bearing Capacity of the Ground at Considerable Depths.) Zeitschrift f. Bau-
wesen. 62 : 95.
2. KREY. H.-D., 1912. Erddvuck, Erdwiderstand und Tvagfiihigkeit d. Baugrundes. Gesichtspunkte f. d.
Berechnung. Pvaktische Beispiele und Erddrucktabellen. (Earth Pressure, Earth Resistance, and
Load-Bearing Capacity of Building Sites. Guide to calculations. Practical examples and earth-
pressure tables.) W. Ernst c.%Sohn. Berlin. 2nd, revised, ed. 1918; 3rd, revised and expanded
ed. 1926 ; 4th ed., revised and expanded by J. Ehrenberg, 1932 ; 5th ed., corr. and supplemented
by J. Ehrenberg, 1936.
3. KREY. H.-D., 1923. Betrachtungen iibev Grcisse und Richtung des Erddvucks. (Observations on the
Magnitude and Direction of Earth Pressure.) Bautechnik. 1 : 219.
4. KREY, H.-D., 1924. Die Widerstandsfiihigkeit des Untergrundes und der Einjuss der Kohiision beim
Erddvuck und Erdwiderstand. (Resistance of Subsoil and the Influence of Cohesion in Earth Pressure
and Earth Resistance.) Bautechnik. 2 : 462.
5. KREY, H.-D.. 1926. Gebrochene und gekriimmte Gleitjliichen bei Aufgaben des Erddrucks. (Bent and
Curved Planes of Displacement in Earth Pressure Problems.) Bautechnik. 4 : 279.
6. KREY, H.-D., 1927. Rutschgqfiihvliche und jliessende Bodenarten. (Slip-Prone and Non-Cohesive
Soils.) Bautechnik. 5 : 485.

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