EXPERTISE // PEOPLE

John E. Pearson

Principal and Laboratory Manager

 
Experience

Since joining WJE in 1990, John Pearson has worked on a broad range of assignments for stadiums, parking garages, buildings, building components, masonry and stone facades, bridges, and heavy machinery. His work has focused on the testing and instrumentation of structures and structural components. Mr. Pearson has developed and installed numerous computer-controlled data acquisition systems, which involved monitoring fatigue stresses in a dredge and a die-cast press, and vibrations and displacements in buildings and bridges. he has extensive experience in performing laboratory tests on various structural materials and elements, including post-installed mechanical and adhesive anchorage systems.

Mr. Pearson has coauthored papers and presented on structure response during the reconstruction of an underground utility, soil anchor testing and behavior, fatigue monitoring of a barge mounted excavator, full-scale load testing of a post-tensioned elevated roadway, post-installed concrete anchorage testing and evaluation, and bearing failure of a passenger train elevated bridge. Mr. Pearson has investigated the cause of an elevated passenger rail system and designed a bearing repair to mitigate future failures.

REPRESENTATIVE PROJECTS

Testing and Instrumentation

  • Dutra Dredge - Port of Miami, FL: Fatigue stress monitoring of dredge boom
  • Wacker Drive - Chicago, IL: Post-tensioned cast-in-place elevated roadway
  • USG Gypsum Plant - Bedford, IN: Pipe-weld cracking during drying process of gypsum
  • General Motors Assembly Plant - Atlanta, GA: Floor vibration monitoring in assembly area
  • Wrigley Field - Chicago, IL: Truss-supported stand vibration and truss strain measurements
  • Chicago, IL: Pedestrian bridge vibration
  • Philadelphia, PA: Elevated bridge bearing distress

 

Load Testing

  • Wacker Drive Roadway Prototype - Rochelle, IL: Post-tensioned segmental roadway prototype
  • Mast-Climbing Work Platforms - IL: City of Chicago permitting
  • Cast-in-place, mechanical, and adhesive concrete anchoring systems
  • Wrigley Field - Chicago, IL: Baseball stadium trusses
  • Philadelphia, PA: Steel and concrete support members of passenger train system

 

Materials Evaluation

  • Post-tensioning strand and anchorage systems
  • Post-installed concrete anchoring systems
  • Window safety film
  • Extruded resin and wood fiber deck boards and railing system
  • Masonry and stone facade anchoring systems
  • Masonry and stone facade repair
Professional Affiliations

American Concrete Institute
American Society of Civil Engineers
Concrete Anchor Manufacturers Association

Registrations

Professional Engineer in FL, IL, IN, MO, PA, and WI
Structural Engineer in IL

Education

University of Missouri-Rolla
Bachelor of Science, Civil Engineering, 1988

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Master of Science, Structural Engineering, 1989