A true giant in rock mechanics, rock engineering and in life

A tribute to Dr. Evert Hoek: August 23, 1933 – July 6, 2024

Over the last week, the world has had to come to terms with the passing on Saturday 6 July of Dr. Evert Hoek, a true giant in the fields of rock mechanics and rock engineering, whose work has guided technological developments in all aspects of this field of engineering and which shaped the minds of rock engineers and geotechnical engineering practitioners all over the world.

Evert Hoek was born in Zimbabwe in southern Africa in 1933 and graduated in mechanical engineering with a BSc and an MSc from the University of Cape Town in 1957. He became involved in rock mechanics in 1958 when he started working in research on problems of brittle fracture in rock associated with very deep mines in South Africa. His degrees include a Ph.D. from the University of Cape Town, a DSc (Engineering) from the University of London, and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Waterloo and Toronto in Canada and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Spain. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK), an International Member of the US National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. He spent 8 years as a research engineer in the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), 9 years as a Reader and then Professor in the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London, 12 years as a consultant with Golder Associates in Vancouver, Canada, and 6 years as an Industrial Research Professor in the University of Toronto. For the 25 years prior to his retirement in 2018, he worked as an independent consultant on review and consulting boards on civil and mining engineering projects around the world.

Dr. Hoek followed in the footsteps of notable scientists and engineers such as Terzaghi, Griffiths and others, and building on their early work, helped establish the modern-day fields of ‘rock engineering’ and ‘rock mechanics’, subjects which still had to be invented when he started work on his PhD in 1958. A 2022 paper by Rocscience titled ‘Principal Considerations in Rock Engineering Practice and Contributions from Africa celebrates contributions made by rock engineering experts of African origin or association since the 1940s and 1950s, and provides further insight into the impact Dr. Hoek’s work had on this field of engineering.

Today, rock engineers and geotechnical engineering practitioners all over the world regularly visits Hoek’s Corner2 which is an online collection of books, published research papers and an exclusive video lecture series by Dr. Hoek, maintained by Rocscience, and his rock engineering course notes ‘Practical Rock Engineering’ has become a seminal reference in the libraries of geotechnical engineering practitioners. Employing the engineering knowledge and understanding shared by Dr. Hoek of stress and deformation processes, and of the strength of rock materials both at an intact and at rockmass scale, and methods and techniques he helped develop to analyse and model complex rock engineering problems, geotechnical engineering practitioners are able to better design excavations in rock in both civil engineering and mine, to make the world a safer place to work and live in!

Those who worked with Dr. Hoek, remembers him as a true gentleman, and fondly recalls the kind and respectful manner in which he always engaged those he worked with, taught, and mentored, and it is a cherished memory indeed for those who were privileged enough to meet him in person before he retired in 2018.

Uli Vogler worked with Dr. Hoek at the CSIR in the 1950s and helped him develop several ISRM Suggested Methods for rock laboratory testing that are still in use today. He remembers Dr. Hoek as a talented and versatile engineer, and shared the following anecdote:

In the late 1950s, during lunchtimes, Evert Hoek helped his neighbour, O.P.M. Prozesky with his research by wiring up instrumentation to record the temperature of bird eggs during incubation in hot desert conditions. Prozesky could thus prove that birds are able to cool off their eggs on hot days. Years later, Prozesky became a well‑known ornithologist at the then Transvaal Museum and author of the authoritative ‘A Field Guide to the Birds of Southern Africa’.

Evert Hoek was much loved by his family and admired and valued as a friend, teacher, and colleague. A true giant in rock mechanics, rock engineering and in life, we will miss him greatly. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

·        Obituary – In loving memory of Evert Hoek, August 23, 1933 – July 6, 2024

Evert Hoek Obituary - North Vancouver, BC (dignitymemorial.com)

·        A tribute from Rocscience: (25) Post | LinkedIn

·        A trip down memory lane – Rock engineering before computers, by Dr. Evert Hoek:

Rock Engineering Before Computers | Dr. Evert Hoek (rocscience.com)