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26
Geotechnical News
June 2013
www.geotechnicalnews.com
GEOTECHNICAL INSTRUMENTATION NEWS
Introduction by John Dunnicliff, Editor
This is the seventy-fourth episode of GIN. Three articles this time.
They’re all self-explanatory, so there’s no need for the editor to bore
you with introductions. Here’s a table of contents:
A report on the US Society of
Dams workshop in Arizona in
February on state-of-the-art tech-
nologies for monitoring dams and
levees, by Christopher Hill and
Pierre Choquet.
The second episode of Field Moni-
toring Challenges, by Marcelo
Chuaqui and Wing Lam.
An article by me on some on-line
sources of information about geo-
technical instrumentation.
Lessons learned. I need you
Nobody
has responded to my plea for
help with GIN, so here’s a repeat of
the plea:
A significant number of articles
in recent GINs have described
new and emerging technologies.
It’s been exciting for me to learn
about these, but I’d now like to
take a step towards nuts-and-
boltsy things, and lessons learned,
primarily lessons learned from
unexpected events in the field. All
of us in this business have such
stories to tell, and if we share
them we can learn from each
other. So – please – ask yourself
whether you could contribute
some of these stories for GIN.
They don’t need to be complex
things, and you can refer to
“Project X”. I well understand
that you may have difficulty with
employer or client approval, in
which case I’m happy to refer
to you as “Anonymous”, and
promise not to disclose your name
to anyone.
In the past, I’ve had very
little response to pleas for
contributions, and have usually
had to rely on arm-twisting.
Please let me hear from you.
PLEASE let me hear from you.
The
first step is an abstract – see
“How to
submit articles” on www.geotechnical-
news.com/instrumentation_news.php.
If I don’t hear from you, GIN may die.
The April 2103 continuing
education course in Florida
There were 64 registrants at the
course, and 12 lecturers. 15 countries
were represented. Thank you to all
registrants and lecturers for participat-
ing.
I’ve decided that there will be no more
of these courses in Florida, because
age is taking its toll. Perhaps else-
where. Watch this space!
Closure
Please send contributions to this
column, or an abstract of an article for
GIN, to me as an e-mail attachment in
MSWord, to
john@dunnicliff.eclipse.co.uk, or by
mail: Little Leat, Whisselwell, Bovey
Tracey, Devon TQ13 9LA, England.
Tel. +44-1626-832919.
Sei Gsund! (Yiddish)
USSD presents workshop on state-of-the-art
monitoring technologies
Christopher J. Hill and Pierre Choquet
At the USSD (US Society on Dams)
Annual Meeting and Conference
in Glendale, Arizona in February
2013, the Committee for Monitoring
Dams and their Foundations hosted
a workshop titled “State of the Art
Technologies for Monitoring Dams
and Levees.” Fourteen speakers made
short presentations about a wide
variety of topics, followed by ques-
tions and discussion in the seven-hour
event. Moderating the workshop were
Pierre Choquet of RST Instruments
and Christopher Hill of MWD of
Southern California.
Two speakers came from Europe to
describe the use of fiber optic cables
for monitoring. Sam Johansson of
HydroResearch in Sweden, and Dan-
iele Inaudi of Smartec in Switzerland
described use of fiber optic cables
for temperature and strain monitor-
ing, respectively. Johansson made the
point that temperature monitoring for
dams is a long-established practice to
estimate seepage flows, especially in