International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering

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International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering
AbbreviationISSMGE
Formation1936;89 years ago (1936)
TypeNGO
Legal statusCharity
PurposeProfessional association
Headquarters London, EC1
United Kingdom
Coordinates 51°31′38″N0°06′08″W / 51.5273°N 0.1023°W / 51.5273; -0.1023
Membership21,000
Secretary General
Andrew McNamara
President
Dr M. Ballouz
Main organ
Council
AffiliationsInternational Union of Geological Sciences
Website www.issmge.org/en/
Formerly called
International Society for Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering

The International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) is an international professional association, presently based in London, representing engineers, academics and contractors involved in geotechnical engineering. It is a federation of 90 member societies representing 91 countries around the world, which together give it a total of some 21,000 individual members. There are also 43 corporate associates from industry. [1] [2] [3] [4] The current ISSMGE President is Dr Marc Ballouz. [5]

Contents

History

The ISSMGE originated in the International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, held in June 1936 at Harvard University as one of many events held to mark the university's 300th anniversary. Arthur Casagrande of the Harvard faculty gained university support for an international conference on soil mechanics and successfully persuaded Karl Terzaghi, who was then working in Vienna, to preside. The conference attracted 206 delegates from 20 countries. [6] [7] [8] The success of the five-day conference led participants to decide to establish a quadrennial International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering (ICSMFE) as a permanent institution. [6] An executive committee was set up, with Terzaghi as the first president, Casagrande as its first secretary, and Philip Rutledge, also of Harvard, as treasurer. [6] [9] [8] Due to World War II, the second ICSMFE was not held until June 1948. The 1948 conference, held in Rotterdam, had 596 delegates. [7] After the third ICSMFE was held five years later in Zurich in 1953, [7] the organization settled into a pattern of meeting every four years. In the meantime, a first regional conference was held in Australasia in 1952.

Terzaghi was first president of the ICSMFE, serving until 1957 when he was succeeded by Alec Skempton. [10] Casagrande succeeded Skempton, holding the presidency from 1961 to 1965. [11] [12]

A steering committee was established in 1981, and it became the Board in 1985. This meets annually; the Council meets every two years. [13]

The current name, the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, was adopted in 1997. [12]

ISSMGE membership has increased through its history. There were 32 member societies and 2500 individual members by 1957, 50 societies and 11,500 individuals in 1977, and 71 societies and 16,500 individuals in 1998. [12] As of 2012, ISSMGE's reported membership totaled 19,000 individuals in 90 countries. [4]

ISSMGE is a member of the Federation of International Geo-Engineering Societies (FedIGS). [14]

ISSMGE Presidents and Secretaries-General

The ISSMGE Presidents over its history are as follows:

  • Karl von Terzaghi (1936–1957)
  • Alec Skempton (1957–1961)
  • Arthur Casagrande (1961–1965)
  • L. Bjerrum (1965–1969)
  • Ralph Brazelton Peck (1969–1973)
  • Jean Kérisel (1973–1977)
  • M. Fukuoka (1977–1981)
  • V. F. B. de Mello (1981–1985)
  • B. B. Broms (1985–1989)
  • N. R. Morgenstern (1989–1994)
  • M. Jamiolkowski (1994–1997)
  • K. Ishihara (1997–2001)
  • W. Van Impe (2001–2005)
  • P.S. Sêco e Pinto (2005–2009)
  • J.L. Briaud (2009–2013)
  • R. Frank (2013–2017)
  • C.W.W. Ng (2017–2022)
  • M. Ballouz (2022–2026).

The secretaries general have been as follows:

  • John K.T.L. Nash (1965–1981)
  • John Burland (1981)
  • Richard H.G. Parry (1981–1999)
  • Prof R.N. Taylor (1999–2023)
  • Andrew McNamara (2023–present). [15]

Activities

The ISSMGE organises conferences on subjects including deep foundations, earthquake engineering and underground construction. Its main events continue to be the quadrennial International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ICSMGE), plus five quadrennial regional conferences, Young Geotechnical Engineers' Conferences, and specialist international conferences, symposia and workshops. [13]

In addition to a bimonthly bulletin and various technical committee reports, the society publishes an official scientific journal in collaboration with Geoengineer.org, the International Journal of Geoengineering Case Histories. [16] This is a peer-reviewed online journal that presents reports of observations and data collected in the practice of geotechnical engineering, earthquake engineering, environmental geotechnics, and engineering geology. [17]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karl von Terzaghi</span> Austrian geotechnical engineer known as the "father of soil mechanics"

Karl von Terzaghi was an Austrian mechanical engineer, geotechnical engineer, and geologist known as the "father of soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering".

Sir Alec Westley Skempton was an English civil engineer internationally recognised, along with Karl Terzaghi, as one of the founding fathers of the engineering discipline of soil mechanics. He established the soil mechanics course at Imperial College London, where the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department's building was renamed after him in 2004, and was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to engineering. He was also a notable contributor on the history of British civil engineering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terzaghi Dam</span> Dam across the Bridge River Valley in British Columbia, Canada

Terzaghi Dam is the key diversion dam in BC Hydro's Bridge River Power Project. It forms the project's largest reservoir, Carpenter Lake west of Lillooet. Originally known as the Mission Dam, it was renamed Terzaghi Dam in 1965 to honor Karl von Terzaghi, the civil engineer who founded the science of soil mechanics. It is located about 30 km up the Bridge River from its confluence with the Fraser.

Ralph Brazelton Peck was a civil engineer specializing in soil mechanics, the author and co-author of popular soil mechanics and foundation engineering text books, and Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In 1948, together with Karl von Terzaghi, Peck published the book Soil Mechanics in Engineering Practice, an influential geotechnical engineering text which continues to be regularly cited and is now in a third edition.

Arthur Casagrande was an American civil engineer born in Austria-Hungary who made important contributions to the fields of engineering geology and geotechnical engineering during its infancy. Renowned for his ingenious designs of soil testing apparatus and fundamental research on seepage and soil liquefaction, he is also credited for developing the soil mechanics teaching programme at Harvard University during the early 1930s that has since been modelled in many universities around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Burland</span> British/South African Geotechnical Engineer and Professor of Soil Mechanics

John Boscawen Burland is a geotechnical engineer, Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Investigator at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Imperial College London, and a noted expert in the field of soil mechanics.

Rudolph "Silas" Glossop was a British geotechnical engineer and mining engineer notable for his contributions to the field of engineering geology and soil mechanics. He was instrumental in founding Soil Mechanics Ltd. and the establishment of the peer-reviewed journal, Géotechnique. The Glossop Lecture at the Geological Society is named after him.

Geoprofessions is a term coined by the Geoprofessional Business Association to connote various technical disciplines that involve engineering, earth and environmental services applied to below-ground ("subsurface"), ground-surface, and ground-surface-connected conditions, structures, or formations. The principal disciplines include, as major categories:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oedometer test</span>

An oedometer test is a kind of geotechnical investigation performed in geotechnical engineering that measures a soil's consolidation properties. Oedometer tests are performed by applying different loads to a soil sample and measuring the deformation response. The results from these tests are used to predict how a soil in the field will deform in response to a change in effective stress.

Harry George Poulos is an Australian of Greek descent civil engineer specialising in geotechnical engineering and soil mechanics, internationally known as an expert on soil behaviour and pile foundations.

The British Geotechnical Association is a learned 'Associated Society' of the Institution of Civil Engineers, based in London, England, and a registered UK charity. It provides a focal point for organisations and individuals interested in geotechnical engineering.

Andrew John Whittle is Edmund K. Turner Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and former Head of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He specializes in Geotechnical Engineering and more particularly in numerical and constitutive modelling.

Thomas William Lambe was an American geotechnical engineer and an emeritus professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean-Pierre Giroud</span>

Jean-Pierre Giroud is a French geotechnical engineer and a pioneer of geosynthetics since 1970. In 1977, he coined the words "geotextile" and "geomembrane", thus initiating the "geo-terminology". He is also a past president of the International Geosynthetics Society, member of the US National Academies, and Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Geosynthetics Society</span>

The International Geosynthetics Society (IGS) is an engineering professional society focused on the field of geosynthetics, which are polymeric materials used in geotechnical engineering. The IGS describes itself as "a learned society dedicated to the scientific and engineering development of geotextiles, geomembranes, related products, and associated technologies." It was founded in Paris in 1983 as the International Geotextile Society and is a member of the Federation of International Geo-Engineering Societies, along with the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), International Society for Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering (ISRM), and International Association for Engineering Geology and the Environment (IAEG).

Jeremiah Edmund Bowden Jennings was a Professor in the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Witwatersrand (Wits), South Africa and its head of department from 1954 until his retirement in 1976.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geoffrey Eustace Blight</span> South African geotechnical engineer

Geoffrey Eustace Blight was a professor in the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Witwatersrand (Wits), serving twice as head of department.

Albert Sybrandus Keverling Buisman was a Dutch civil engineer and Professor of Applied Mechanics, who was instrumental in establishing the Laboratorium voor Grondmechanica in Delft. He made notable contributions to the development of soil mechanics in the Netherlands.

Izzat M. Idriss (1935-) is a Syrian-American geotechnical engineer. His research on the geotechnical aspects of earthquake engineering has led to the development of many of the currently used procedures for evaluating the behavior of soil sites and soil structures during earthquakes, such as methods for evaluating: the characteristics of earthquake ground motions; seismic response of sites; potential for soil liquefaction; performance of embankment dams during earthquakes; and soil-structure interaction in response to earthquake shaking.

Leonard Frank Cooling was an English physicist and engineer widely regarded as the "Founder of British Soil Mechanics". He played a pivotal role in the early development of soil mechanics in the United Kingdom, establishing the first British soil mechanics laboratory at the Building Research Station (BRS) in 1934.

References

  1. ↑ ISSMGE home page Archived 24 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine (retrieved: 20 July 2013)
  2. ↑ "The International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE)". Geo-Institute. ASCE. Retrieved 29 July 2013.[ permanent dead link ]
  3. ↑ "The Society". ISSMGE. 18 December 2012.
  4. 1 2 Briaud, Jean-Louis (March 2013). "Introduction to ISSMGE".
  5. ↑ (retrieved: 17 March 2023
  6. 1 2 3 Fatherree, Ben H. (2006). The History of Geotechnical Engineering at the Waterways Experiment Station 1932–2000. Vicksburg, Mississippi: US Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center. Archived from the original on 2 October 2013. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  7. 1 2 3 "Proceedings of the International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Table of Contents 1936–2001" (PDF). UMassAmherst. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  8. 1 2 Malyshev, M. V. (July–August 1973). "Karl Terzaghi (1883–1963) – Translated from Osnovaniya, Fundamenty i Mekhanika Gruntov, No. 4, pp. 15–16, July–August, 1973". Soil Mechanics & Foundation Engineering. 10 (4): 257–259. doi:10.1007/BF01704946. S2CID   112250759.
  9. ↑ "News: Prof. Karl von Terzaghi". Nature. 143 (3627): 753. 6 May 1939. doi: 10.1038/143753c0 .
  10. ↑ "Professor Sir Alec Skempton". Imperial College. Retrieved 10 September 2013.
  11. ↑ "Casagrande, Arthur (1902–1981)". ASCE. Archived from the original on 11 December 2013. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  12. 1 2 3 "ISSMGE History". ISSMGE. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  13. 1 2 "ISSMGE Aims". ISSMGE. Retrieved 10 September 2013.
  14. ↑ "The International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering".
  15. ↑ "The International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering". www.issmge.org. Retrieved 6 January 2025.
  16. ↑ International Journal of Geoengineering Case Histories, ISSMGE (retrieved 22 July 2013)
  17. ↑ "website of International Journal of Geoengineering Case Histories" . Retrieved 10 September 2013.
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