from ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 4 Issue 4 (pp.31-32)
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.
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