TC Chair: Antonio Viana da Fonseca

To promote the utilization and improve the interpretation of in-situ: Activities will contributing to enhance geotechnical site characterization, including the determination of soil and rock properties, use of borehole techniques, penetration (and pressuremeter/dilatometer) tests, and s methods, and their variant. Pressuremeters (PMT, SBPT…) and dilatometers (DMT…) are equipments well settled in geotechnical practice in many countries, carrying with them interpretation methodologies and design approaches that should be well disseminate by our committee. All the initiatives coming from members indicated by our MSs, who are well engaged to these in situ tests for ground characterization will be encouraged. The “core”-committee will look for the possibility to invite the “key” colleagues expert on these tests, and who are not included in the members indicated by MSs, to be associated as corresponding members, giving them all the support to disseminate these to our community. Geophysical testing from ground characterization is a novel area in our interests, both as methods well suited to spatial zonation / mapping of subsoil – in surface as in depth, onshore or offshore – but also as very accurate techniques to determine geotechnical parameters – in elastic domain for static modelling, in dynamic analysis from the very low ranges of stress-states conditions, up to failure -, will be sine qua non part of our activities. We would like to express our strong commitment to invite member colleagues who have been doing very important works, both in research, as in industry, to join us in the mission. Notwithstanding the other initiatives that will be encouraged to come for our endorsing, in ISC’5 – see below - there will be a good incidence on this topic.