Members of the CSIC leadership team, International Advisory Group (IAG) and research team featured at the 11th International Symposium on Field Monitoring in Geomechanics (ISFMG 2022), held at Imperial College London in September.
The Symposium brings together people from across the geotechnical monitoring sector to promote better understanding, interpretation and presentation of field measurements and the ISFMG 2022 was attended by more than 200 international delegates.
Dr Allen Marr, who founded and leads Geocomp – one of the foremost providers in the US of real-time, web-based performance monitoring of civil engineering structures, is an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineers, chairs the US National Research Council Committee on Geologic and Geotechnical Engineering – and is a member of CSIC’s IAG, gave the first honorary John Dunnicliff Lecture at the Symposium, entitled ‘Challenges and opportunities in geotechnical performance monitoring’.
Dr Xiaomin Xu, CSIC Research Associate, presented a paper titled ‘Fibre optic instrumented geogrid for ground movement detection’, highlighting the collaborative research addressing the challenge of monitoring ground movement during or after construction that can lead to degradation and ultimately structural failure of assets. CSIC’s collaborative studies and experiments have led to the co-development of a new sensing solution, called Sensorgrid, consisting of a fibre optic-instrumented geogrid for sub-surface ground movement detection which is being trialled in a full-scale field deployment on part of the HS2 Phase One route. This project brings together a number of contributing organisations including CSIC, Epsimon, Jacobs, Huesker, Align and HS2. The paper is co-authored by CSIC researchers and founders of Epsimon, a CSIC spin-off specialising in instrumentation and monitoring of civil infrastructure, Dr Cedric Kechavarzi and Dr Nicholas de Battista, and industry experts, David Wright from Jacobs, Graham Horgan, Hartmut Hangen and David Woods from Huesker, Edgar Bertrand from Align, and Sarah Trinder and Nick Sartain from HS2.
The closing Keynote Address was given by Founding Head of CSIC, Professor Lord Robert Mair. Titled ‘Fibre optic strain measurement for soil-structure interaction’, the lecture featured a range of CSIC and industry partner collaborative projects that demonstrate the benefits of fibre optic sensor monitoring of circular shafts, tunnels, slopes and sinkholes. Lord Mair concluded the lecture by highlighting the huge potential of fibre optics for strain measurement for monitoring soil-structure interaction, improving understanding of induced loads and early warning detection of impending geotechnical instability.