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Geotechnical News December 2011
GEOTECHNICAL INSTRUMENTATION NEWS
deformation. Information will be
posted on the same website in late
summer next year.
Closure
Pleasesendcontributionstothiscolumn,
or an abstract of an article for GIN, to
me as an e-mail attachment inMSWord,
to
, or
by mail: Little Leat, Whisselwell,
Bovey Tracey, Devon TQ13 9LA,
England.
Tel.
+44-1626-832919.
Na zdorovlia! (To your health! -
Ukraine). Thanks to Bohdan Czmola
for this.
Report on the Symposium on Field
Measurements in GeoMechanics
(FMGM 2011)
Berlin, Germany, 12-15 September 2011
Ton Peters
The symposium was held at the famous
Humboldt University in the city centre
of Berlin. The set-up of booths from the
exhibitors within the conference rooms
created an informal atmosphere with
many possibilities of interaction. A
total of approximately 280 registrants
and 20 exhibitors made the symposium
a great success. It was an inspiring
event, for which I thank and honor the
German organizing team, with Jörg
Gattermann as its leader.
A hard copy of the symposium pro-
ceedings with among others the contri-
bution of the authors mentioned in this
report will be available from early De-
cember 2011:
• Publisher: TU Braunschweig
• Editors: J. Gattermann and B. Bruns
• ISBN: 3-927610-87-9
• For further information:
Young Engineers Forum
This is a novelty in the history of
FMGM, introduced by the German
organization, and it worked very well.
It was a contest for young engineers
(under age 35) to present their work
to an international jury, consisting of
Elmo Dibiagio, Pedricto Filho and Ton
Peters, and to have a chance to win one
of the three money prices. Because of
the high quality of the papers and the
good presentations it was a difficult
task for the jury to select the winners.
The first price was awarded to Paolo
Mazzanti (Italy) for his outstanding
work on Terrestrial InSAR monitoring.
Mazzanti applied this new measure-
ment technology to predicting land-
slides and made some specific observa-
tions that need further research. Based
on these observations the Fukuzono
method of predicting failure was adapt-
ed. The jury found this a thorough sci-
entific paper, with a high practical use
for the FMGM community and it was
very well presented.
Second and third were Jan Sommer
(Germany) and Kazuo Sakai (Japan).
Sommer showed the set-up and results
of a fascinating experiment on a full-
scale model of a new foundation type
for offshore wind turbines. Based on a
monitoring program and finite element
analyses Sakai explained the behavior
of the rock mass and concrete lining
during shaft sinking by the short step
method. Both gave good presentations
of their work.
The three prize winners are shown
in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Prize winners, from left to right: Sakai, Sommer and
Mazzanti. (Photo courtesy of the FMGM organization).
