ABSTRACT
STEELE 07.11. 1886 Compton CA/USA 14.10. 1973 Oakland CA/USA Isaac Cleveland Steele graduated from University of California, Berkeley CA, with a BS degree in civil engineering in 1909. His professional career was then essentially with the Pacific Gas & Electric Company, where he was employed from 1909 until his retirement in 1951. First as a labourer, he was rapidly promoted to foreman on projects of mountain construction and in 1911 was made a designer and in 1917 placed in charge of the Civil Engineering Group. In 1944 he became chief of the Division of Civil Engineering. He was appointed vice-president in 1947. Steele was a member of the US Committee on Large Dams, and the California Division of Water Resources Board. Among the projects under the direction of Steele were the development of the Pit and Feather Rivers, and the Salt Springs Dam on Makelumna River in Central California. He made notable laboratory experiments on baffle piers as used in energy dissipators below dams to increase the efficiency of a hydraulic jump stilling basin, and to reduce its length. These appurtenances may significantly increase the dissipation effect, provided the approach flow velocities are not too large such that cavitation damage would result. After retirement, Steele was a consultant specializing in dam design throughout the world. These included the Upper Volta River project in Ghana, and the Derbendi-Khan Dam in Iraq. Also he was involved from 1952 to 1959 in the International Board of Consultants for the High Aswan Dam, Egypt. As a recognized authority on rock-filled dams, he wrote a section on that topic in the Handbook of applied hydraulics. Anonymous (1947). I.C. Steele. Engineering News-Record 139(Aug.28): 297. P Anonymous (1961). I.C. Steele. Civil Engineering 31(10): 83. P Anonymous (1966). I.C. Steele. Civil Engineering 36(10): 74. P Anonymous (1974). Isaac Cleveland Steele. Trans. ASCE 139: 559. Steele, I.C. (1920). Making the final 15-ft. raise of the Spaulding Dam. Engineering News-Record 85(22): 1020-1024. Steele, I.C. (1926). Baffle piers at toe of dam dispel energy of flow. Engineering News-Record 96(22): 886-889; 97(20): 800-802. Steele, I.C., Monroe, R.A. (1929). Baffle-pier experiments on models of Pit River Dam. Trans. ASCE 94: 451-546. Steele, I.C. (1952). Rock-fill dams. Handbook of applied hydraulics 6: 207-252, C.V. Davis, ed. McGraw-Hill: New York.
