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Geotechnical News • March 2018
GEOTECHNICAL INSTRUMENTATION NEWS
Introduction by John Dunnicliff, Editor
This is the 91st episode of GIN. Two articles this time.
Fully grouted piezometers again
The Groundwater section of Sep-
tember 2017 Geotechnical News
consisted of an article by Marefat et
al about fully grouted piezometers in
a soft Champlain clay deposit. The
article caused significant discussion
among some of my colleagues. The
same authors submitted “an improved
paper” on the same subject to Geo-
technical Testing Journal (GTJ), which
is currently under review.
The authors have prepared the fol-
lowing update to the Geotechnical
News article, indicating that “the GTJ
reviewers raised some interesting
questions about the paper that should
be mentioned in Geotechnical News”.
I encourage you to read the GTJ paper.
As indicated at the end of this article,
the updated paper will be available
on the Geotechnical Testing Journal
website in the coming months (https://
/
JOURNALS/GEOTECH/). You can
also email francois.duhaime@etsmtl.
ca for a copy and an update on timing.
Extract / Transform / Load (ETL)
processes for instrumentation
data transfer.
Garrett Bayrd of Shannon and Wilson,
Inc. explains that establishing commu-
nications with a datalogger does not
move the data around. Extract / Trans-
form / Load (ETL) processes move the
data from an instrument or datalogger
to a computer or server. ETL processes
extract
the data from the datalogger,
transform
it into a format that the
storage system can input, then
load
the data into the specific file (database,
text file) for long term storage, post-
processing, or graphing.
Real-time performance monitor-
ing as a risk management tool
In June 2017 Allen Marr, founder and
CEO of Geocomp Corporation, Acton,
MA, made a presentation in Cam-
bridge, England on the above subject.
The presentation covered:
• Why monitor?
• What we’ve learned in recent years
• How to achieve an effective instru-
mentation and monitoring program
• Importance of real-time monitoring
In my view this is an excellent
presentation, appealing to me pri-
marily because of its focus on what
I’ve called “people issues” (others
are using the term “human factors”),
which are so vital to what we do. It’s
available online at
/
watch?v=67gAXmxcokA. Here’s an
example of some pithy words about
human factors:
Contractors
talk every day
about how to
manage risk.
All the ‘reasons for monitoring’
help us identify and manage
risk. Risk is something that not
only we, but our clients and
our construction contractors
really understand. Contractors
talk every day about how to
manage risk. I want to suggest
to you that that reason for doing
instrumentation and monitoring
is a far more powerful reason
than simply saying “we’re
geotechnical engineers, we have
uncertainties in our design, so
we’d like to put some instruments
in”. That argument doesn’t
go over very well to owners.
But if we talk about the fact
that everything we do involves
uncertainties and risk, we can
then have an open discussion
about methods of managing risks
and the role and usefulness of
instrumentation and monitoring
.
10th International Symposium
on Field Measurements in
Geomechanics (FMGM)
The 10th FMGM will be held in Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil during July 16-20,
2018. FMGM symposia have been
held every four years since 1983, in
Zurich, Kobe (1987), Oslo (1991),
Bergamo (1985), Singapore (1999),
Oslo (2003), Boston (2007), Berlin
(2011) and Sydney (2015). I refer to
these as “The once-every-four-years
meeting of our club”. Be there! Details
are on
/
The program will include special
lectures, technical presentations, a
forum for young FMGM engineers,
poster sessions, exhibitions, work-
shops and technical tours, as well as a
parallel non-technical program. And a
very important session about
Human
Factors.
Fifth International Course on
Geotechnical and Structural
Monitoring, May 22-24, 2018 in
Rome, Italy.
The course schedule is now on
www.
geotechnicalmonitoring.eu
. Registra-
tion for the course can be made on that
site and also for the Master Classes
that will be held on May 21, 2018. The
total attendance for the four courses to
date (2013-2017) has been 440 from
49 different countries.
Master Classes and leaders will be:
• Piezometers with Martin Clegg and
Chris Spalton, Geosense Ltd, UK
