NEWS ON RECENT CONFERENCE 2014
DFI MIDDLE EAST CONFERENCE
Deep Foundations Institute (DFI), Middle East Chapter had organized DFI Middle East Conference (DFIMEC 2014) at Dubai, UAE during April 2-3, 2014. The DFI Middle East Conference is the region’s leading technical conference in the field of foundation engineering. The Second Edition of the conference aimed to provide an opportunity for the region’s geotechnical engineering practitioners and academicians to interface, exchange information and experience, and present the latest developments in the field of foundation design and construction. Co-sponsored by the Deep Foundations Institute, the Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone Authority (DTMFZA), and the American University in Dubai (AUD), and supported by the UAE Society of Engineers, this 2014 conference builds upon the success of DFIMEC 2012 and provided a top-quality forum for discussing cutting edge technologies and current developments in the field through case histories. The conference exhibit, running in parallel with the technical sessions, enabled companies to showcase their qualifications and project portfolios. 2014 DFI Middle East Conference chairs were Prof. Alaa K. Ashmawy of American University Dubai and Prof. Rolf Katzenbach of Technical University Darmstadt Germany. Technical program chair was Dr. Khaldoun Fahoum, who is also the Chair of DFI Middle East. Technical and Organizing Committee members were Mr. Marwan Alzaylaie (Chair) of DTMFZA, Mr. Emad Sharif of ACES, Mr. Faizur Rahman of DTMFZA and Salah Al Dilmi of Road and Traffic Authority (RTA) Dubai.
2014 DFI Middle East Conference held at American University in Dubai during April 2-3, 2014 featured prominent six (6) keynote presentations by (1) Professor Dr.-Ing. Rolf Katzenbach, Professor and Director of Institute and Laboratory of Geotechnics, Technical University Darmstadt, Germany and Chairman of ISSMGE Technical Committee TC 212 – Deep Foundations, who is a world-renowned expert on pile-raft foundations, delivered the keynote lecture on ‘Value Engineering for Deep Foundation Challenges’; (2) Professor Silvano Marchetti, Professor of L’Aquila University, Italy, who is a key figure in geotechnical site characterization and in-situ testing using DMT and SDMT, gave the keynote lecture on ‘Settlement Prediction and Liquefaction Analysis from the Flat Dilatometer Test’; (3) Professor Deepankar Choudhury, Professor of Civil Engineering Department, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India, and Secretary of ISSMGE Technical Committee TC 212 – Deep Foundations, who is an expert on geotechnical earthquake engineering, delivered the keynote lecture on ‘Earthquake-Resistant Design of Tailings Dams and Pile Foundations – Case Studies from India’; (4) Dr. Yoichi Watabe, Director of Geotechnical Engineering, Port and Airport Research Institute, Japan, and Secretary of Japanese Geotechnical Society (JGS), who is a leading authority in the design and development of airports in Japan, gave the keynote lecture on ‘Construction of Haneda Airport’s Fourth Runway: Hybrid Reclamation and Piled Pier Structure’; (5) Dr. Ronald Brinkgreve, Manager Research and Projects in PLAXIS and Associate Professor in TU Delft, Netherlands, a pioneer in the field of finite element modeling of foundations using PLAXIS, talked on ‘Efficient Modeling of Pile Foundations in the Finite Element Method’; and (6) Professor J. T. Shahu, Professor of Civil Engineering Department, IIT Delhi, New Delhi, India, who is an expert on railway engineering, delivered the keynote lecture on ‘Geotechnical Evaluation and Finite Element Analysis of Railway Track Foundation’.
Photographs takes during this conference are shown in the following pages.
Submitted by: Mr. Marwan Alzaylaie (DTMFZA), Organizing & Technical Committee of DFIMEC-2014, Dubai. Email: Marwan.Alzaylaie@dtmfza.gov.ae
Download ISSMGE Bulletin – Volume 8 Issue 3 June 2014 (pp. 18-22)
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