Vancouver Geotechnical Society

The Increasing Role of Seismic Measurements in Geotechnical Engineering. Thursday, February 2, 2012.
Dr. Kenneth H. Stokoe of the University of Texas in Austin has been working in the areas of field seismic measurements, dynamic laboratory measurements, and dynamic soil-structure interaction for more than 40 years, and has been instrumental in developing several small-strain field methods for in-situ shear wave velocity measurements. Dr. Stokoe will give a background on seismic measurements in the field and laboratory, providing examples of application that include investigations for a tunnel, earth dams, and difficult to sample soils.

Wick Drains and Piling for Cai Mep Container Port, Vietnam. Tuesday, January 17, 2012.
Bengt Fellenius, Dr. Tech., P.Eng. is an engineer specializing in deep foundation design. The presentation will discuss the devlopment of the Cai Mep Port in Vietnam, for which up to 2 m of fill was placed over very compressible clay and silt. Wick drains and surcharge loads were used in an attempt to accelerate preloading settlements. Aspects of the design, monitoring, back-analysis, and predictions of future settlements will be discussed.

Geotechnical Design & Construction of W.R.Bennett Bridge, Kelowna. Tuesday, November 29, 2011.
Uthaya Uthayakumar, Ph.D., P.Eng. is a senior geotechnical engineer at exp Services Inc. has worked on several highway bridge projects, seismic bridge upgrades, and other highway projects in British Columbia. Dr. Uthayakumar will talk about the new five-lane William R. Bennett Bridge across Okanagan Lake, discussing the site and soil conditions, geotechnical design and analyses, and construction aspects of the project.

Cross Canada Lecture Tour - Fall 2011: The Science of Judgment. Thursday, November 3, 2011.
Steven Vick, P.E. is an author and independent consulant with forty years of engineering experience. In addition to extensive experience in the planning, design, and analysis of tailings dams, he has a rich background in risk & probabilistic methods, which has allowed him to explore the relation between subjective probability and engineering judment. His Lecture will discuss the relationship between experience and judgment, causal and statistical reasoning, and the role of case histories (among other topics) from a geotechnical perspective.

Investigation and Retrofit of the Roger Pierlet Bridge. Thursday, September 15, 2011.
Dr. Alex Sy, P.Eng. is a vice president (technical) of Klohn Crippen Berger Ltd., and will discuss the damage that occurred to the Roger Pierlet Railway Overpass in Cloverdale, BC in 2004 as a result of the failure of a large adjacent soil stockpile. Mechanism of the failure as well as measures taken for the permanent retrofit of various bridge elements will be discussed.

Excavation Support at the Bown Encana and Surrey Memorial Hospital Sites Tuesday, June 7, 2011.
Matthew Janes, P.Eng. will be discussing his experience with Terzaghi's Observational Approach method on the Bow Encana project in Calgary and the Surrey Memorial Hospital project, for which interlocking caisson walls were utilized in both cases and where control of ground movements was particularly important.

Seismically Induced Lateral Earth Pressures: A New Perspective. Thursday, May 19, 2011.
Dr. Nicholas Sitar is a professor of geotechnical and geological engineering at UC Berkeley. Dr. Sitar will present recent field and laboratory data that suggests that seismically induced lateral loads estimated by current methods may be overconservative. The implications of this data on the design of retaining walls will be discussed.

Canada Line Project. Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Dr. Roger Woodhead, P.Eng. was the technical director for SNC Lavalin will discuss the Canada Line Rapid Transit project, which involved consideration of numerous geotechnical issues including soft Richmond soils, cut and cover excavations, and hard ground tunnelling. The talk will address contractual arrangements as well as some of the technical considerations.

Weak Sedimentary Rock Behavior. Wednesday, March 2, 2011 - Derek Martin

Engineering Aspects of Geohazard Risk Assessment in North Vancouver. Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Heather Crow, P.Eng. and Dr. Jorge Prieto, P.Eng. will discuss their work on a risk assessment project done for the District of North Vancouver, addressing evaluation of landslide, flooding, liquefaction, and large-strain earthquakes and how they were modelled for the project.

Chile Earthquake. Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Dr. John Cassidy, Dr. Carlos Ventura, and Mr. Adrian Wightman will discuss the massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake that occurred in Chile on February 27, 2010 from the perspectives of tectonics, ground motion and structural behavior, and similarity with BC. Seismicity, bridges, buildings, tsunami, and geotechnical aspects of the earthquake will all be discussed.

Ongoing Challenges in Engineering Geology for Tunneling in Difficult Ground. Thursday, May 20, 2010
Dr. Paul Marinos, Professor of Engineering Geology at the University of Athens and the 2010 Jahns Distinguished Lecturer, will discuss methods used to assess geological factors that have an impact on tunnel design, particularly for tunnels under complex or difficult geologic conditions.

Site Response Evaluation in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering Practice. Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Dr. Steven Kramer, a professor at the University of Washington, will discuss the effects of local soil conditions on the nature of ground surface motions produced by earthquakes as well as the basic methods of site response analyses and the results of a recent survey regarding their use in geotechnical practice.

Karst and Its Influence on Tailings Dams I Have Known and Loved. Thursday, January 28, 2010
Dr. Iain Bruce, president of BCG Engineering Inc., will discuss the karst formation and the impact on engineering structures, particularly dams. Examples from projects in Papua New Guinea, The Dominican Republic, and Peru will be given. This lecture is being presented in cooperation with UBC Geological Engineering, on campus (The University of British Columbia Life Sciences Centre, Room LSC3 - 2350 Health Sciences Mall).

North Beach Rock Slide - A Case History. Thursday, November 26, 2009
Stephen M. Bean, a principal at Thurber Engineering Ltd. in Victoria, will present a case history review of the 2008 slide at Highway 97 near Okanagon Lake, which closed the road for seventeen days, discussing the review of the mechanics and recommendations for stabilization.

Lateral Load Analysis of Pile Groups Based on Full-Scale Testing. Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Dr. Kyle Rollins, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Brigham Young University in Utah, will discuss the lateral load resistance behavior of pile groups, based on research that includes full-scale testing of pile groups in different soils.

Geotechnical Aspects of Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project. Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Dr. M (Yogi) Yogendrakumar, a principal at Golder Associates Ltd. (Burnaby) served as the geotechnical project manager for the recent expansion of the 18-yr old Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre. The presentation will include discussion of site preparation and foundation design for the project, including the challenge of utilizing Vibro-Replacement densification at the site.

Overlooked Details in Liquefaction Evaluations. Tuesday, May 26, 2009.
Professor Izzat Idriss, Ph.D., P.E. is one of the pioneers in the Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering field, and has done fundamental and applied research related to geotechnical earthquake engineering. Professor Idriss will discuss two approaches have been used for estimating the shear stresses induced by the earthquake ground motions at various depths within a soil profile.

Cross Canada Lecture Tour - Spring 2009: Construction on Organic Terrain and Characterization of Organic Soils. Wednesday, May 6, 2009.
Arvid Landva, a geotechnical consultant working out of Fredericton, New Brunswick, will discuss the classification of organic soils and the geotechnical challenges presented by them, based on his decades of experience in the field. View sponsors: page 1 page 2.

Challenges Of Utility Tunneling Through Lower Mainland Till Deposits. Tuesday, April 14, 2009.
Naresh Koirala shares his experience of tunnelling through till-like soils by presenting a number of case histories.

Golden Ears Bridge - Geotechnical Seismic Design Aspects & Pile Loading Test. Tuesday, March 10, 2009.
Earnest Naesgaard and Ali Amini present an overview of geotechnical design considerations with emphasis on seismic and pile design aspects.

The History and the Future of High Strain Dynamic Testing of Piles. Thursday, February 12, 2009.
Peter Middendorp, President of Profound, a Dutch company that develops foundation testing and geotechnical monitoring systems, will discuss High Strain Dynamic Testing of piles.

The Comforts of Ignorance and the Benefits of Arrogance. Wednesday, November 19, 2008.
(Presented in conjunction with the UBC Geological Engineering Student Club)

Some Complex Problems Concerning the Loetschberg Base Tunnel. Thursday, October 30, 2008
Aurèle PArriaux, Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, will discuss the Loetschberg base tunnel, which required consideration of several complex situations.

Assessment of Seismic Performance of Piles in Liquefying Soils. Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Misko Cubrinovski, Associate Professor at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand will be comparing three methods for assessing piles in liquefiable soils.

Seismic Upgrade of the Seymour Falls Dam - Presentation Case History. Tuesday, September 30, 2008.
Neil K. Singh, Klohn Crippen Berger Ltd., will present the methods and techniques used to siesmically upgrade the dam without disrupting normal operations at the dam.

Soil-Structure Interaction. Fri. - Sat., June 25-26, 2010
A two-day seminar presented by the Structural Engineers Association of BC (SEABC), discussing various ways of accounting for soil-structure interaction (SSI) from analysis of the total soilstructure system to analysis of various approximate models of the system. The focus is on buildings and bridges, with both shallow and deep foundations. Sponsored by the UBC Dept. of Civil Engineering.

Soil Liquefaction Short Course. Saturday, December 5, 2009
A one-day short course presented by I.M. Idriss and R.W. Boulanger, providing concepts and methods for estimating the potential for the triggering of liquefaction, lateral spreading, cyclic softening, and residual strengths of liquefied soils. Registration deadline is November 16, 2009. Follow link in title for registration form and information.

Cross Canada Lecture Tour - Spring 2011: Deep Tunnelling in Hard Brittle Rock. Wednesday, April 13, 2011.
Dr. Mark Diederichs is a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering at Queen's University, and is an expert in the brittle damage and fracture of rock in a tunnelling environment. Dr. Diederichs will discuss the mechanisms and impacts of brittle rock failure during tunnelling, using a number of major tunnelling projects as illustration.  Thanks go to the sponsors of this Cross Canada Lecture Tour: BCG Engineering Inc., EBA Engineering Consultants Ltd., GEO-SLOPE International Ltd., and Reinforced Earth Company Ltd.

Cross Canada Lecture Tour - Fall 2010: The Rüdlingen Landslide Experiment. Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Dr. Sarah Springman, a professor and head of the Geotechnics Group at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, will discuss a large scale field experiment that was conducted on a 38° forested slope that was heavily instrumented and monitored prior to the triggering of a landslide with artificial rainfall.                          View sponsors

Cross Canada Lecture Tour - Spring 2010: Design, Construction and Operation of Dams in Permafrost Regions. Thursday, April 22, 2010
Don Hayley, a founding partner of EBA Engineering Consultants Ltd., will discuss the unique characteristics that frozen ground and ground ice present when planning, designing and constructing earth and rockfill dams on a permafrost foundation. View sponsors: page 1 page 2.

Cross Canada Lecture Tour - Spring 2009: Construction on Organic Terrain and Characterization of Organic Soils.. Wednesday, May 6, 2009.
Arvid Landva, a geotechnical consultant working out of Fredericton, New Brunswick, will discuss the classification of organic soils and the geotechnical challenges presented by them, based on his decades of experience in the field. View sponsors: page 1 page 2.

Loetschberg Base Tunnel. October 30, 2008
Cross Canada Lecture Tour.  Professor Aurèle Parriaux from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology discusses some of the complexities involved with the design and construction of the Loetschberg Base Tunnel that now crosses the northern range of the Swiss Alps.