"Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT"
is published quarterly by the
Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Bldg. 1-383, 77 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139

Editor: Debbie Levey
(617)253-7101
levey@mit.edu

Soil and rock meeting here

        Soil and Rock America 2003, a combined meeting of the 12th Pan American Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, and the 39th US Rock Mechanics Symposium, attracted about 650 people to MIT on June 22 to 26. Profs. Trish Culligan and Herbert Einstein were co-chairs of the meeting, and Prof. Andrew Whittle was chair of the technical committee. Dr. John Germaine ran the lab tours and reviewed papers, and a large number of CEE staff members and students worked days, nights, and weekends to make everything run smoothly.
        Five main themes dominated the meeting, each with many associated sub-themes: ground characterization and exploration; geomaterials and mechanics; subsurface fluids and geo-environment; geo-construction; and lessons learned from failures. Some of the approximately 400 papers were presented to full sessions and others were done in poster sessions. With plenary sessions and breakout sessions, sometimes four events occurred simultaneously.
        Besides listening to the general and specialized sessions, attendees flocked to three main lectures. Former MIT faculty member (1967 to 1971) John Christian, a consulting engineer, gave the Terzaghi lecture, Geotechnical Engineering Reliability: How Well Do We Know What We Are Doing? The Cassagrande Lecture, Recommended Practice for Soft Ground Site Characterization, was by Prof. Emeritus Charles Ladd and Don deGroot '85 & '89 (SM & ScD), who is a professor at Umass/Amherst. The Peck lecture, World Trade Center 'Bathtub', a Project and Career in Parallel," by George Tamaro of Mueser Rutledge, was attended by its legendary namesake, 91-year-old Ralph Peck. Tamaro designed the foundation for the World Trade Center, and spent the first year after its demise designing the excavation of the collapsed building.
        A formal debate on the question, "Are contractors the only true innovators in geotechnical engineering practice?" was followed by a lively general discussion. It was co-chaired by Roy Olsen and Andrew Whitte, with Don Bruce, Joe Welse and Fred Kulhawy arguing for the affirmitive, and Bill Brummund, Jeff Keaton and Deborah Goodings supporting the negative.
        Playful touches reminded people of the theme of the meeting. Chunks of granite sat on the snack tables looking like rather dusty blocks of aged cheese. Artistically arranged among the pastries and muffins were little plastic dump trucks filled with crushed Oreo cookies, which bore an uncanny resemblance to certain types of soil.
        The job of making sure all papers had abstracts in both Spanish and English fell to grad student Carlos Regalado and former grad student Pilar Rodriguez. "That's a huge job! For awhile, all Carlos was doing was translations," states John Germaine. "Speakers had the flexibility to present in English or Spanish. It was an extremely successful conference from the perspective that it brought together the various parts of the North and South American community. I spoke to many people who were interested in partially saturated soil mechanics, which is a major South American topic but not too important in most of North America. We don't have many massive landslides that are caused by rainfall, but that's a huge problem in Brazil and other countries. It gave me an opportunity to talk to a number of experts who deal with partially saturated soils. Having the rock experts and the soil people together in the same area, socializing and comparing notes, was very helpful."
        Co-Chairman Herbert Einstein added that the conference was also very international, with about a third of the attendees from places outside the US. "It was a lot of work, but eventually it was worth the effort."
        The meeting was sponsored by the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering; the American Rock Mechanics Association; the Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers; MIT; and the Boston Society of Civil Engineers.