NEWS ON RECENT CONFERENCE
The 5th international Young Geotechnical Engineers’ Conference – iYGEC 2013

Yu-Jun Cui

Chair of the Organizing Committee of 5th iYGEC

The fifth international Young Geotechnical Engineers’ Conference – iYGEC 2013 was held on 31st of August and 1st of September, 2013, at Ecole des Ponts Paris Tech (ENPC) under the auspices of the French Society for Soil Mechanics (CFMS) and the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE). The Organising Committee was composed of: Yu-Jun Cui (Chair), Fabrice Emeriault (Co-chair), Séverine Beaunier, Fahd Cuira, Siavash Ghabezloo, Jean-Michel Pereira, Hugo Ravel, Michael Reboul and Anh Minh Tang. The contribution of the following volunteer PhD students was greatly appreciated: Rawaz Muhammed, Trong Vinh Duong, Hamza Menaceur, Sadok Feia, Linh Quyen Dao, Simona Saba, Jean-François Bruchon and Radja Elandaloussi.

The iYGEC conference series aims at bringing together young people who may be studying for a PhD or Msc or at the early stage of their career in industry or academia, and enables them to communicate with each other and to share their experience in their academic and professional activities. Traditionally, the participants are selected by their respective ISSMGE Member Societies – i.e., two nominees per Member Society. For this fifth edition of iYGEC, in order to further promote the exchanges, the participation was extended to all young geotechnical engineers. This was done without losing the iYGEC’s tradition: thus, a mixed format was adopted with nominees and non-nominees.

Fig. 1. Participation of countries by continent

In total 164 young engineers participated in the event, with a distribution as 60% nominees and 40% non-nominees, 55% academia and 45% practitioners, and 70% men and 30% women. 57 countries were represented with a repartition by continent shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 2 is the picture of all the participants.

Fig. 2. Picture of all the participants

Download ISSMGE Bulletin – Volume 7 Issue 6 (pp. 9-11)
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NEWS ON RECENT CONFERENCE

XIXth Károly Széchy Memorial Session, First Young Geotechnical Engineering Meeting, and XXIInd Geotechnical Evening Forum
Budapest, 15th of February, 2013

The Hungarian National Committee of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) jointly with the Engineering Section of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Geotechnical Section of the Hungarian Chamber of Engineers celebrated the XIXth Károly Széchy Memorial Session on the 15th February, 2013 at the Great Lecture Hall of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, with 200 persons attending the event. In the morning the inaugural meeting of the Association of Young Geotechnics was held at the central building of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.

Participants of the first Hungarian Young Geotechnical Engineering Meeting

The members who have founded the association came from three Hungarian Universities; they were PhD and MSc students. The association is closely related to the ISSMGE HNC, and they plan quarterly meetings to discuss the results of their research, support and inform each other, listen to lectures of guest speakers, and workshop-like meetings are held. In the inaugural meeting 70 young people participated, and listened to Professor John Burland’s answers to their question, and then listened to the presentation of three young people.

Participants of the first Hungarian Young Geotechnical Engineering Meeting

Download ISSMGE Bulletin – Volume 7 Issue 1-2 (pp. 22, 24-25)
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REPORT TO ISSMGE FOUNDATION

REPORT OF 3AyGEC

After the recent 3rd African Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference in Cairo, Egypt, from 12th to 14th of November, 2012, four reports were submitted by participants whose conference attendances were supported by the ISSMGE Foundation. Their reports are presented here.

A SHORT REPORT ON 3AyGEC, CAIRO, EGYPT

by Kabari, Baribeop (Nigeria)

The 3rd African Young Geotechnical Engineers conference which took place in Cairo, Egypt, was the best of its kind. The three-day conference started with registration of the participants on the 11th of November, 2012, and ended after a breath-taking technical visit at a project site and an exciting trip to the historical site of the Pyramids in Giza on the 14th. The conference was flawlessly organised and relatively well attended.

On Day 1, the Chairperson, Professor Fatma Baligh who presided over the opening ceremonies presented a warm welcome address and quickly invited Professors Samuel U. Ejezie and Jean-Louis Briaud who take their turn. This remarkable start was followed by Paper sessions and tea and lunch breaks.

Paper session 1 titled, “Soil Behaviour, Properties & Correlation” was preceded by a thrilling Keynote Lecture which was delivered by the ISSMGE President. The President exposed the subject of Saturated soils with specific emphasis on Shrink-Swell Soils and the Design of Shallow Foundations. Quite a number of young geotechnical engineers followed suits by responding to questions following individual presentations. I participated fully in the paper session 1 by making a presentation on “Soil Properties Correlation for Shallow Foundation Design”.

Other paper sessions held on Day 1 and 2 assumed similar structure as paper session 1 and were also laced with motivating Keynote lectures by the VP Africa and Peter Day (former VP Africa), and also followed by awesome presentations by the young geotechnical engineers. Other distinguished professors from universities across Egypt also made tremendous impact through their contributions.

On Day 3 of the event a visit was made to the Multi Story Garage being constructed below El-Tahrir Square in Cairo. The project managers (ARAB Contractors) took us around the project site and explained different components of the drawings. Thereafter, we visited the historical Pyramids and the Sphinx in the Giza area.

The 3AyGEC has founded in me a deep-seated interest in geotechnical engineering research activities. I had the opportunity to engage in discussions with both young researchers and our enviable senior colleagues. It was a well organised conference and the best of its kind. I believe continual hosting of this event will always ignite the already existing passion in young engineers for research and practice of geotechnical engineering. This will lead to enhanced future activities of our dear profession especially in Africa and the entire globe.

Many thanks to the ISSMGE Foundation for sponsorship.

Download ISSMGE Bulletin – Volume 6 Issue 6 (p.31)
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3rd Indian Young Geotechnical Engineering Conference 2011: Brief Report

The Third Indian Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference (3IYGEC) was organized by Indian Geotechnical Society, Delhi Chapter at the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), New Delhi, India, between 25th and 26th of March 2011. The Conference was inaugurated by Dr. S. Gangopadhyay, Director CRRI who also released the proceedings of the Conference. Prof. K. S. Rao, President, Indian Geotechnical Society was the Guest of Honor.

Mr. Ravi Sundaram, Chairman, IGS Delhi Chapter delivered the welcome address. Dr. R. Chitra Vice-Chairman of IGS Delhi Chapter presented the background of IGS Delhi Chapter, its activities and displayed the Best Chapter Plaque awarded to the Chapter. The Chief Guest lauded the activities of the Chapter and extended full support for future activities. Prof. K. S. Rao outlined this plan of IGS during his presidency term. Dr. Atul Nanda, Vice-Chairman of IGS Delhi Chapter addressed the vote of thanks.

About 120 delegates attended the conference. Majority of the delegates were students and young researchers from academic institutes, research laboratories, and practicing industries of the country. Twelve plenary lectures were delivered by eminent professionals in the two day conference. A total of 59 abstracts were received; 41 full papers were accepted and published after peer review. About 30 presentations were made by enthusiastic young geotechnical engineers in six technical sessions, chaired and co-chaired by eminent engineers and scientists.

Apart from technical deliberations, a job fair was organized wherein young engineers attended the interviews conducted by several companies from the geotechnical industry. A Geotechnical Dumb Charades added an element of fun and relaxation.

Inauguration of Conference

Glimpse of Audience

Prize Distribution for Best Paper

The presentations made by the young geotechnical engineers were judged by four distinguished judges and four best papers were selected. The following persons were awarded best paper awards:

– First Prize: Dr. B. Munawar Basha for his paper titled “Linear and Exponential Functions to evaluate Active Earth Pressure considering Strain Localization”.

– Second Prize: Mr. Deendayal Rathod for his paper titled “Migration of Sulphate in soil under Different Conditions”

– Third Prizes: Mr. Abishek Kumar for his paper titled “Amplification Factor from Intensity Map and Site Response Analysis for soil sites during 1999 Chamoli Earthquake” and to Ms. Sowmiya L.S. for her paper titled “Finite Element Analysis of Railway Tracks on Clayey Soil reinforced with Geosynthetics”.

Paper Presentations by Young Engineers

Paper Presentations by Young Engineers

Job Fair Organized for Young Engineers

Download ISSMGE Bulletin – Volume 5 Issue 2 (p.69)
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20th European Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference

Jiří Boštík and Věra Glisníková
Department of Geotechnics, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Brno University of Technology
Czech Republic

From May 30 to June 1, 2010, the Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering, hosted the 20th European Young Geotechnical Conference co-organized by the Czech and Slovak Committee for Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering. Brno University of Technology (Fig. 1) is the second largest and second oldest technical university in the Czech Republic. Its history goes back to 1849; the Faculty of Civil Engineering is 110 years old and has been significantly refurbished in recent years. Accommodation of hotel quality was arranged for participants in twin-bedded rooms at the Hotel Palacký.

Figure 1. General view on the complex of buildings of the Faculty of Civil Engineering BUT, Brno

The conference was attended by 48 geotechnical engineers of age up to 35 from 28 European countries nominated by their respective National Societies for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (Fig. 2).

Figure 2. Group photo in front of building of the Faculty of Civil Engineering

Total number of 49 papers were presented by the delegates: Albania – 2 papers, Austria – 2 papers, Belgium – 3 papers, Croatia – 1 paper, Czech and Slovak Republic – 4 papers, Denmark – 2 papers, Finland – 1 paper, France – 2 papers, FYR Macedonia – 1 paper, Germany – 2 papers, Greece – 2 papers, Hungary – 1 paper, Italy – 2 papers, Ireland – 2 papers, Netherlands – 2 papers, Norway – 2 papers, Poland – 2 papers, Portugal – 1 paper, Romania – 2 papers, Russia – 2 papers, Serbia – 1 paper, Slovenia – 1 paper, Spain – 2 papers, Sweden – 1 paper, Switzerland – 1 paper, Turkey – 2 papers, Ukraine – 1 paper, and United Kingdom – 2 papers. The papers were published in the conference proceedings “GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING 20, View of Young European Geotechnical Engineers, Brno 2010“ with ISBN 978-80-7204-686-7. The front page of the conference proceedings is shown in Fig. 3. Abstracts and a conference report are available at http://geotech.fce.vutbr.cz.

Figure 3. Front page of the conference proceedings

Figure 4. General view of the lecture hall

The Conference started on Sunday 30th May 2010 with evening Brno sightseeing and with common dinner for all EYGEC delegates in the historical centre of the town. During Monday 31st May 2010 and Tuesday 1st June 2010, 48 lectures of 10 minutes (including 2 minutes of discussion) were presented by the EYGEC participants (Fig. 4). Presentations of the conference delegates were classified into three main sessions:

1. Ground Investigation
2. Geomechanics
3. Geotechnics
3.1 Foundation Engineering, 3.2 Earth Structures,
3.3 Underground Structures, 3.4 Environmental Geotechnics

According to the guidelines the sessions were “chaired by friendly, professional engineers” – John Atkinson (Emeritus Professor of Soil Mechanics, City University London), Jean-Louis Briaud (President of ISSMGE, Texas A&M University, USA) and Ivan Vaníček (Vice President ISSMGE for Europe, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic); see Figs. 5 and 6.

Figure 5. Prof. Ivan Vaníček and Prof. John Atkinson

Figure 6. Prof. John Atkinson and Prof. Jean-Louis Briaud

Besides delegate´s presentations, four keynote lectures were delivered. John Atkinson delivered his lecture on “How to do research”. Jean-Louis Briaud talked about “ISSMGE, research, and education”. Jiří Műhl (Technical Director of Foundation Engineering Inc., Prague, Czech Republic) and Jan Šperger (Foundation Engineering Inc., Prague, Czech Republic) presented “Modern foundation technologies”. Finally, Miloš Polenka (GEOtest Brno, Inc., Czech Republic) delivered his lecture on “The removal of rocky environment and groundwater contamination – GEOtest Brno case studies”.

The days of hard work were accompanied by more relaxing evening programmes: the sightseeing, dinner with live dulcimer music and closing technical excursion – construction of city road tunnels in Brno. It was very useful to meet other young people working in geotechnical engineering and to have an opportunity to interact with them. There was a mix of participants from industry and academia, importantly, and many useful contacts were certainly made.

Young Geotechnical Engineers Conferences have developed from an idea by Professor Atkinson back in the 1980s. The conferences has a long history now and many good friendly relations and new geotechnical research cooperation have been initiated.

Download ISSMGE Bulletin – Volume 4 Issue 4 (pp.31-32)
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The Student and Young Member Presidential Group

By Jennifer Nicks, Ph.D. (Co-Chair, ISSMGE SYMPG)

The Student and Young Member Presidential Group (SYMPG) was created by ISSMGE President Jean-Louis Briaud to get input and ideas from students and younger members (S/YM) across the globe. The group originally consisted of a total of 18 members (3 members from each of the 6 regions) who were nominated by each regional Vice President (and approved by the President in November 2009). The members are either students or younger members (< 35 years old). Since the formation of the group, the group has dropped to 16 members while waiting for 2 new nominations. The current members are (in alphabetical order by surname):

Mahnoosh Biglari (Iran)
Joost Breedeveld (Netherlands)
Lucy Coe (New Zealand)
Silvia García (Mexico)
Erdin Ibraim (UK)
Daniel Jirásko (Czech Republic)
Young-Hoon Jung (Korea)
Baribeop Kabari (Nigeria)
Samuel Laura Huanca (Peru)
Xiojun Li (China)
Marcos Montoro (Argentina)
Edwin Moreno (Colombia)
Jennifer Nicks (USA)
Suzanne Powell (Canada)
Imen Said (Tunisia)
Brendan Scott (Australia)

The first task of the group was for each member to come up with some ideas on how to make ISSMGE more attractive to S/YM and get them more involved in the organization. From the long list of ideas, we narrowed them down to 4 that we are currently working on within the group. The 4 ideas are:

1) Continue to develop the ISSMGE Website
2) Improve communication between the ISSMGE and S/YM
3) Increase YM involvement in Technical Committees
4) Develop and increase S/YM Membership in ISSMGE

To undertake these ideas, 4 subgroups were created within the SYMPG. The subgroups are tasked with the what/why/how to implement the broad ideas set forth by the SYMPG. The chairs of each subgroup prepared a paragraph to describe these activities and future plans:

Subgroup 1: Continue to develop the ISSMGE Website (Chair: Dr. Xiojun Li)

Subgroup 1 has identified some problems of ISSMGE website from the perspective of student and young members. These problems can be classified into three categories: ease of use, contents and functionality. Subgroup 1 has also proposed some solutions for these problems:

» Introduce more professional resources into website. Also, it will be beneficial to spread ISSMGE unique culture and attract more young people if we can introduce the masters of ISSMGE from the beginning to now. A more vivid introduction of the branches of our association, such as organization structure, research directions, key leader’s video introduction, great achievement, milestone event and so on will be equally important.
» Add popular functions, such as RSS news subscription, members’ blogs and forums, into ISSMGE website. Visitors of ISSMGE webpage should have an opportunity to get automatically generated news that could be sent by e-mail. Subscribing for the newsletter could be done easily through the web form and through submitting emails.
» Ease of use of website, such as page layout, color design and interactivity, plays an important role in a site’s quality. Improvement on these aspects will have positive effects. On the home page up to date news in format of short articles may be included. For example newsletters from the society, scientific articles, invitations for upcoming events etc. However, it would be challenging for webmasters to update a homepage regularly.

Subgroup 1 contacted GeoForum.com co-founder Dr. Rainer Massarsch for possible collaborations in improving the ISSMGE website. Dr. Rainer Massarsch agreed that young geotechnical engineers are interested to learn, to ask questions and to get competent responses. He provided very valuable comments in addition to the ideas presented above. His comments are: (1) Discussions need to be monitored by trustworthy experts. ISSMGE TCs could monitor discussion covering their respective area. Also, to host a successful discussion forum, one needs to develop a sustainable concept. Common problems include fake questions, a lot of spam and web engines trying to highjack e-mail addresses; (2) a lot of information in the form of youtube or other videos which could be organized according to specific topics (earthquakes, liquefaction, landslides, ground improvement etc.) can be added to an area of website; and (3) Geo-commercial companies and their activities can be linked to other area of the website. These companies may have privilege of publishing information about their company.

Subgroup 1 also consulted ISSMGE Secretary General Prof. Neil Taylor on how the ISSMGE website works. Prof. Neil Taylor said they are thinking of ways in which the website can be improved and he said the work of Subgroup 1 is very helpful.

Future plans include keeping a close contact with Prof. Neil Taylor and Dr. Rainer Massarsch, interacting with the Innovation and Development Committee and working out a proposal for the improvement of ISSMGE website.

Read more from the ISSMGE Bulletin – Volume 4 Issue 3 (pp.5-7)
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Views of Young Geotechnical Engineers

Young Member Award winners

Anders Kullingsjö Sweden

Leon van Paassen The Netherlands

Susumu Nakajima Japan

Young Member Award winner: Anders Kullingsjö, Sweden

Personal history:
Born: 01 January 1974
‐1997, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg. Master of Science – Civil Engineering.
‐2007, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Doctor of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Division of GeoEngineering Geotechnical Engineering

Experience Record:
1998‐2005 Skanska Teknik AB: Consultant Geot. Eng.
2005‐2009 Skanska Sverige AB: Manager Geot. Eng.

Present position:
Senior Manager / Specialist at Geot. Eng.

Commission of trust:
‐ Swedish Geotechnical Society, secretary in the west division 1999‐2003 and member in the election committee 2003‐2006
‐ Implementation committee of the Eurocodes in Sweden, Member of the steering committee 2005 to date
‐ Representing Sweden in ISSMGE Technical committee “Limit State Design in Geotechnical Engineering”, TC23. 2006 to date

Receiving this award is a great honour for me and an acknowledgement of that the long tradition of geotechnical engineering in Sweden still is in the forefront.

My research presented in my thesis (Kullingsjö, 2007) and in the article nominated to the YMA award, presented in the 17th ISSMGE Conference (Kullingsjö, 2009), deals with the deep excavations in soft clay and how the excavation will affect the immediate surroundings in terms of deformation. The uniqueness of my work is the close cooperation between academia and industry and that an exchange with outstanding universities in some areas made it possible to use highly advanced numerical analysis at a real case in the centre of Gothenburg. The research was divided into Class A predictions of a real case, field monitoring, laboratory testing, calibration of advanced constitutive soil models and Class B calculations with more or less advanced constitutive models.

» Read more from ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 3 Issue 4 December 2009 (p.5)

Young Member Award winner: Leon van Paassen, The Netherlands

Personal history:
Born: 28 January 1976
Education:
‐ 2002, Delft University of Technology, MSc – Mining Engineering, Engineering Geology.
‐2009, Delft University of Technology, PhD – Applied Sciences, Environmental Biotechnology

Experience Record:
2000‐2002, IFCO Foundation Expertise BV – Junior Geotechnical Engineer
2002‐2005, GeoDelft – Advisor Foundations and Underground Constructions.
2005‐2009, GeoDelft/Deltares – R&D Smartsoils®.
2009‐now, Delft University of Technology, Department of Geotechnology –
Assistant Professor Geo‐Engineering.

Committees
2003‐2007 Treasurer Ingeokring (Dutch department IAEG/ISRM)
2008 Organising committee for 1st International Conference on BioGeoCivil Engineering
2009‐now, Editorial board Ingeokring Newsletter

It is a great honour for me to receive the Young Member Award 2009 for my publication “Scale up of BioGrout, a biological ground reinforcement method”, which I presented during the 17th ICSMGE in Alexandria, 5‐9 October 2009. In this paper I describe the experiments that were performed to develop BioGrout – a new ground improvement method based on microbially induced carbonate precipitation – from proof of principle in the laboratory to a field scale experiment, in which equipment, conditions and techniques were applied, which are also used in emphasized applications, such as increasing the stiffness of railroad embankments. First, experiments were performed in a 1 m3 container set‐up simulating a spherical injection from a single point, followed by a 100 m3 field scale experiment. In this final experiment 40 m3 of sand was biologically cemented within 12 days and 6 flushes, stretching over a distance of 5 m between three injection and three extraction points. In both scale up experiments significant increase of the average strength was obtained, but distinct spatial variability of the mechanical properties was observed. The heterogeneity is considered to be affected by the induced flow field, the distribution of bacteria, the procedure of supplying reagents (continuous flow or sequential batches) and the crystallization process.

» Read more from ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 3 Issue 4 December 2009 (p.6)

Young Member Award winner: Susumu Nakajima, Japan

Personal history:
Born: 26 April 1978
Education:
‐ 2000, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
‐ 2005, University of Tokyo, Master of Engineering
‐ 2008, University of Tokyo, Doctor of Engineering

Experience Record:
2003‐2007; HONMA Corporation, Japan
2008; Researcher, Public Works Research Institute, Japan

It is pleasent surprising and honor for me to be given an opportunity to introduce my research and my views of the international society, future of geotechnical engineering in the ISSMGE Bulletin.

The paper submitted to the ICSMGE2009 was on the effect of shaking history and material properties of geogrid models on the seismic behavior of the gravity type and geosynthetics reinforced soil retaining walls, which was the part of 14‐years research achievements conducted by University of Tokyo, Railway Technical Research Institute and Tokyo University of Science, Japan. This research project started at 1995 immediately after the Hyogoken‐Nanbu earthquake so as to avoid the catastrophic failure of the retaining structures observed in the earthquake.

» Read more from ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 3 Issue 4 December 2009 (p.7)

excerpt from Message from the President
By Professor Pedro Sêco e Pinto

ISSMGE should prepare the young geotechnical engineers to face the real needs of society and the new challenges. So it is important to help them to develop independent thinking and decision making skills trough practice, to reduce the gap between theory and practice, to help them explore their intuition and teach them the importance of engineering judgement.

From a balance of the Young Geotechnical Engineers Regional Conferences organised in Africa (2), in Asia (6), Australasia (8), in Europe (19) and in South America (3) it was recognised the great interest for the education of young geotechnical engineers.

The list of the recent Regional Young Geotechnical Conferences is the following:
2007 Tunis – Tunisie 2 th AYGEC
2008 Bangalore – India 6 th AYGEC
2008 Wellington – Australasia 8 th AYGEC
2008 Gyor – Hungary 19 th EYGEC
2009 Cordoba – Argentina 3rd SAYGEC

I was invited to deliver lectures and also messages for the occasion of Opening Ceremonies and Closing Ceremonies of 2th AYGEC (Tunis, 2006), 6th AYGEC (Bangalore, 2008), 17th EYGEC (Zagreb, 2006), 18th EYGEC (Ancona, 2007), 19th EYGEC (Gyor, 2008) and 3rd SAYGEC (Cordoba, 2009),

The President has interacted with the Chairperson of 4 IYGEC Dr. Fatma Baligh mainly to discuss the letter of invitation, the conference programme and the instructions for the authors.

By e.mail 26 November 2008 the invitations were sent by the Organising Committee to all ISSMGE Member Societies. A CAC meeting of 4IYGEC took place in Alexandria on 26 February 2009. Intensive interaction has continued between myself and the Chairperson of 4 IYGEC to discuss several technical and administrative issues.

I would like to transmit the young geotechnical engineers the following message from Kahlii Gibran, The Prophet
“The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and
run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be
revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or
sounding line”.

Download ISSMGE Bulletin – Volume 3 Issue 3 September 2009 (p.4)
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Views of Young Geotechnical Engineers

III South-American Conference of Young Geotechnical Engineers

The 3rd South-American Conference of Young Geotechnical Engineers was organized by the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), the Argentinean Society of Geotechnical Engineering (SAIG), the Argentinean National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) and the National University of Córdoba (UNC). This event took place in Córdoba (Argentina) from March 30 to April 1, in the facilities of the Engineering School of the UNC. During the Conference, authorities of Cordoba Province, of the Engineering School of UNC and of the ISSMGE spoke about the importance of research, transference of technology and professional formation to promote novel solutions and knowledge within the geotechnical field.

Opening ceremony: From left to right, Prof. Gabriel Tavella (president of the Engineering School, UNC), Prof. Waldemar Hachich (Vice-President of ISSMGE), Prof Pedro Sêco e Pinto (President of ISSMGE), P.E. Hugo Testa (representing the government of Córdoba Province) and Prof. Franco Francisca (Chair of the Local Organizing Committee).

The conference brought together over 86 participants from 9 different countries. Also attend to the conference the President of the ISSMGE (Prof. Pedro Sêco e Pinto), the Vice–President for South America (Prof. Waldemar Hachich), authorities of the Argentinean Society of Geotechnical Engineering (SAIG), authorities of the professional council of Civil Engineers of Córdoba City and authorities and professors of the National University of Córdoba.

Delegates and Invitees of the 3rd SACYGE.

Professor Pedro Sêco e Pinto opens the conference with a speech including also relevant aspect and current activities of the ISSMGE. During Monday and Tuesday 51 articles were presented by the delegates from different countries which were organized in six different sessions: Soil Mechanics, Foundations, Environmental Geotechnics, Site and Laboratory Investigations, Embankments and Retaining Structures, and Computational Geomechanics. There were also 5 special keynote lectures: Prof. Ricardo Rocca spoke about of the Unicity in Geotecnical Engineering, Prof. Waldemar Hachich presented a numerical study of soil nailing, Prof. Roberto Terzariol referred to the advances in the study of collapsible soils performed by the geotechnical group of the UNC during the last 40 years, Prof. Pedro Arduino focus on the lateral loaded pile design and Prof. Sêco e Pinto close the Conference with a lecture of lessons learned from two case histories of retaining structures.

Visit to Cerro Pelado Hydroelectric power plant

The different sessions were chaired by geotechnical engineers and professors with a recognized trajectory and assisted by a young delegate. The work was intense, and there were enriching discussions of different topics that many times continue during the coffee breaks. At Monday evening all the attendants visit the geotechnical laboratory at the UNC where there was also time for a confraternity reception. At Tuesday night all the participants shared a dinner tasting a typical barbecue and different wines from Argentina. During the dinner Professor Sêco e Pinto encouraged the Colombian Society to be the organizer of the next South-American Conference of Young Geotechnical Engineers in 2012. On Wednesday there were a field trip where the attendants visited the Cerro Pelado Hydroelectric Power plant, shared a lunch in Villa General Belgrano, visited a regional beer manufacturing. Finally this conference ended with a touristic visit to the Alta Gracia’s Jesuitical Ranch (UNESCO World Heritage).

Reported by Franco Francisca, Chair of the Local Organizing Committee
Adjunct Professor at the National University of Cordoba and Adjunct Researcher of the Argentinean National Scientific and Technical Research Council.
Email: ffrancis@efn.uncor.edu

Views of Young Geotechnical Engineers

Young Geotechnical Engineers: Welcome Message by New Editorial Member

As a new member of the extended editorial board of ISSMGE Bulletin and Coorinator for Asia, I convey my sincere greetings to the entire Geotechnical faternity of the world.

As per the invitation and approval letter dated March 6, 2009, by Prof. Pinto, President ISSMGE and other board members, we following six young geotechnical engineer will act as coordinator of respective region for ISSMGE Bulletin during a period of four years from 2009. As felt by ISSMGE board members, inclusion of us, from geographical areas like Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe and America, in the editorial board of ISSMGE Bulletin will reinforce the management of the board in near future.

On behalf of my other colleagues, representing different regions, we all welcome this new extended editorial board of the bulletin and thank ISSMGE board for this new selection. It will definitely provide and maintain a strong connection between the experineced and young geotechnical engineers throughout the world using this bulletin.

As a team, we all will work together under the leadership of Prof. Kusakabe, Board member and Editor-in-Chief of ISSMGE Bulletin. However, the responsibility for collection of materials for each issue of the bulletin will be taken by each one of us, in rotation.

To promote the geotechnical news, which are of important concern for our worldwide faternity, we request all the members and non-members to communicate us for possible wide circulation of the material through this bulletin. We solicit all of your valuable suggestions, observations, extract and notices for making this bulletin more helpful and useful to our geotechnical world. The details of the new regional coordinators for communication are given below,

Reported by Deepankar Choudhury, Coordinator for Asia, ISSMGE Bulletin, Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India (Email: dc@civil.iitb.ac.in, dchoudhury@iitb.ac.in)