TC/104 Physical Modelling in Geotechnics

Dear colleagues and friends,

On behalf of the Technical Committee on Physical Modeling in Geotechnics of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE TC104), I am delighted to welcome you all to our revamped website.

The TC104 website is a key instrument in bringing our community together, communicating our key activities, and bringing together young and senior colleagues from all over the world. Together with our new Linkedin page, it can become the connection point between the physical modeling community, the academia, and the industry.

A key component of the TC104 website is the inventory of facilities around the world, which has been updated and expanded thanks to the contributions of our members. The updated and much more detailed information on the capabilities and technical specifications of the existing experimental facilities is a key point in making physical modeling more accessible to the engineering community. Collaborations within our community, with the academia and the industry can be facilitated by better communicating the capabilities of our facilities.

A second key component of the updated website is the conferences page. From now on, the conferences hosted by TC104 (ICPMG, Eurofuge, Asiafuge) will be hosted in our TC104 webpage, which will serve as the go-to-point for all the activities of our community. This will allow homogenization of the conference webpages, and will also progressively serve as an inventory of past conferences. I believe that this is a major step forward, which will serve our community for the years to come.

A third key component is the awards page. From now ow, any information related to the awards of TC104 (Schofield lecture, Bright Spark Award) will be posted there. This will allow direct advertisement of the call for nominations, and also serve as an inventory for current and past award winners. Progressively, it will be updated with videos and photos from the award lectures and ceremonies.

I believe that this is some good first steps forward, but I would like to invite all TC104 members to share your knowledge and experience, and contribute through constructive criticism and by making proposals for further improvement and additions.

Best regards,

Prof. Ioannis Anastasopoulos
Chair of ISSMGE TC104
Chair of Geotechnical Engineering
ETH Zurich, Switzerland