Joint Geotechnical Seminar
City University of Hong Kong, HKIE Geotechnical Division and Hong Kong Geotechnical Society

Title : Using Physical Model Tests to Improve Geotechnical Practice
By Professor Malcolm Bolton
Cambridge University

Date, Time & Venue
Date: 11th December 2003 (Thursday)
Time: 6:00pm-7:30pm
Venue: LT1, Academic Building, City University of Hong Kong
(Tea, coffee and cookie will be provided before the seminar from 5:30pm-6:00pm)

Programme Highlights
It is a rare week in which the speaker does not see the aftermath of a few severe geotechnical failures. This is achieved not through a hectic schedule of international travel, chasing the latest disasters, but through the careful planning of physical model tests in the Schofield Centre for Geotechnical Process and Construction Modelling. The Centre is well-known for its centrifuge facilities, but it also has large pilot-scale test rigs that remain at gravity? The presentation will show evidence of the key mechanisms in a variety of difficult problems such as:
the triggering of fast landslides in loose fill slopes
the creep and degradation of stiff clay slopes
the failure of piled foundations in earthquakes
the thermal snaking of sub-sea pipelines
In each case, the speaker will point out the lessons that can be drawn from the tests, both in purely technical terms and in the way geotechnical engineers should organise themselves to meet new challenges.

Speaker
Professor Malcolm Bolton is the Director of the Schofield Geotechnical Centrifuge Centre. He has managed over ?1 M of research grants and contracts over the last 10 years on a variety of issues mainly related to construction technology and processes including slope stabilization, pile driving, pipeline construction, tunneling and compensation grouting. He has published a book and over one hundred academic papers, mostly relating new geo-technology to the fundamental principles of soil mechanics. He is the Chairman of ISSMGE Technical Committee 35 on Micro-Geomechanics, which is devoted to exhibiting and understanding the basic mechanisms of soil behaviors at the level of significant micro-structure, with parallel interests in finite element and discrete element simulations. He is currently appointed by HKSAR Government as a member of the Slope Safety Technical Review Board. He is the author of about 120 publications on a wide range of topics from fundamental soil mechanics to