7
ISSMGE - The state of the Society (2009-2013) /
SIMSG - État de la Société (2009-2013)
Proceedings of the 18
th
International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013
The Technical Committees (TCs) were reorganized in three
categories (Table 1), fundamental topics (7 TCs), applications
(16 TCs), and impact on society (6 TCs), for a total of 29 TCs.
The location of the chairs and host society of the TCs is shown
on Fig. 5.
Table 1 ISSMGE Technical Committees
Cat
egor
y
TC
#
TC Official Name
Host Country
TC Chair
101 Laboratory Stress Strain Strength Testing of Geomaterials
France
H. Di Benedetto
102
Ground Property Characterization from In-Situ Tests
USA
P. Mayne
103
Numerical Methods in Geomechanics
Hong Kong
K. T. Chau
104
Physical Modelling in Geotechnics
Switzerland/
Australia
S. Springman (‘til 1 July 2010)
C. Gaudin
105
Geo-Mechanics from Micro to Macro
UK/Japan
M. Bolton/M. Hyodo
106
Unsaturated Soils
Spain
E. Alonso
Fun
dam
ental
s
107
Laterites and Lateritic Soils
Ghana
K. Ampadu
201 Geotechnical Aspects of Dykes and Levees, Shore Protection
and Land Reclamation
Netherlands
M. A. Van
202
Transportation Geotechnics
Portugal
A. Gomes Correia
203
Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering and Associated
Problems
Greece
K. Pitilakis
204
Underground Construction in Soft Ground
France/
Netherlands
R. Kastner/A. Bezuijen
205
Limit State design in Geotechnical Engineering
UK
B. Simpson
206
Interactive Geotechnical design
Canada
K. Been
207
Soil-Structure Interaction and Retaining Walls
Russia
V. Ulitsky
208
Slope Stability in Engineering Practice
Canada
J. Fannin
209
Offshore Geotechnics
USA
P. Jeanjean
210
Dams and Embankments
China
Z. Xu
211
Ground Improvement
France
S. Varaksin
212
Deep Foundations
Germany
R. Katzenbach
213
Geotechnics of Soil Erosion
Germany
M. Heibaum
214 Foundation Engineering for Difficult Soft Soil Conditions
Mexico
J. L. Rangel
215
Environmental Geotechnics
Italy
M. Manassero
App
licat
ions
216
Frost Geotechnics
Norway
A. Instanaes
301
Preservation of Historic Sites
Italy
C. Viggiani
302
Forensic Geotechnical Engineering
India
V. V. S. Rao
303 Coastal and River Disaster Mitigation and Rehabilitation
Japan
S. Iai
304 Engineering Practice of Risk Assessment and Management
Singapore
K. K. Phoon
305 Geotechnical Infrastructure for Megacities and New Capitals
Brazil
A. Negro
Imp
act
on
soci
ety
306 Geo-Engineering Education (include aspects of software in
use)
Australia
M. Jaksa
307
Sustainability in Geotechnical Engineering
Canada
D. Basu
7 HONOR LECTURES
The TCs were given the opportunity to create an honour lecture
named after one of the giants in their field. There were already 2
such lectures in 2009 (The Ishihara Lecture and the Mitchell
Lecture), 7 more were created between 2009 and 2013 as listed
on Fig. 6. Many of them were presented in Paris at the
conference. Note that honour lectures are not necessarily
permanent. They are created for eight years renewable by
decision of the technical committee and approval of the Board.
ISHIHARA ‐ Earthquake
MITCHELL – Site characterization
BISHOP – Laboratory testing
KERISEL – Monument preservation
SCHOFIELD – Physical modeling
McCLELLAND – Offshore geotechnics
FUJITA – Underground construction
MENARD – Soil Improvement
ROWE – Environmental geotechnics
Fig. 6 ISSMGE Honour Lectures
8 WEBINARS
Webinars are lectures presented over the internet as follows.
The speaker is at her or his desk in front of the computer screen.
The speaker talks and advances the power point slides as would
be done in a conference setting. The participants sit in front of
their computer many kilometers away and listen to the voice of
the speaker through voice over IP and watch the slides on their
computer screen. Fig. 7 shows the list of webinars offered over
the last two years and the location of the computers connected
worldwide for the first webinar. A contract was established with
a web service company to facilitate the connection with many
participants. The webinar series started in 2011 and the
President gave the first webinar. Until August 2013 the
webinars have been free and the recordings have been kept on
the ISSMGE web site for free access. These recorded webinars
have been accessed 1664 times since they have been uploaded
three months ago. All speakers have been generous and offered
to present the webinars for free as a gift to their fellow
geotechnical engineers.
Fig. 7 Webinar series and location of computers connected to the first
ISSMGE webinar.
1. Scour and Erosion – Briaud, USA, 23
rd
Aug 2011
