5/3/2020 Events | 60th Rankine Lecture

The British Geotechnical Association (BGA) is the principal

association for geotechnical engineers in the United Kingdom.
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60th Rankine Lecture

BGA Meeting

 18.03.2020
 17:30 - 19:30
 The Great Hall, Sher eld Building, Imperial College
London, Exhibition Road, SW7 2AZ
 Organiser: British Geotechnical Association
 Download to Calendar

The 60th Rankine

Lecture

Professor Stephan
Je eris

of Environmental
Geotechnics Limited
on

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5/3/2020 Events | 60th Rankine Lecture

The Unusual and the

Unexpected in
Geotechnical Engineering

Observation – Analogy –
Experiment
Wednesday 18th March 2020 at 5.30pm

The Great Hall, Sher eld Building, Imperial

College London, Exhibition Road, SW7 2AZ

This event is free to attend and advance

registration is not required.

The British Geotechnical Association (BGA) is

pleased to announce that the 60th Rankine
Lecture will be given by Professor Stephan
Je eris of Environmental Geotechnics
Limited on The Unusual and the Unexpected
in Geotechnical Engineering: Observation –
Analogy – Experiment.

The event will be webcast live. A viewing link

will be available on the day of the event via
this web page.

The British Geotechnical Association (BGA)

would like to take the opportunity to
reassure attendees that we are closely
monitoring the situation regarding
Coronavirus but currently plan for the
Lecture and Dinner to go ahead as normal.
We trust that everyone planning to attend
the Lecture and Dinner will consider their
position in relation to any potential risk they
might pose to others and ask them to act
responsibly. Dinner hosts are asked to
consider their guests' position in relation to
government health warnings. We all have a

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duty of care to others and trust that

everyone will act with that in mind.

A yer can be downloaded here.

The Rankine Lecture is widely viewed as the

most prestigious of the invited lectures in
geotechnics. It commemorates William John
Macquorn Rankine, Professor of Civil
Engineering at Glasgow University, who was
one of the rst engineers in the UK to make a
signi cant contribution to soil mechanics. He
is best known for his theory for the earth
pressure on retaining walls.

The Rankine Dinner is held after the lecture -

details and the process to apply for Dinner
tickets will be available via the BGA website.
The Dinner is usually oversubscribed and
interested parties are recommended to apply
early.

Speaker Biography
Stephan Je eris is a director of
Environmental Geotechnics Ltd, a company
he established in 1982 anticipating
developments in this area. He is a Visiting
Professor in the Department of Engineering
Science at the University of Oxford. He is a
former Chairman of the BGA and was a
founder director of WJ Groundwater.

Stephan has worked on major projects

across the World including dams, tunnels,
shafts and deep foundations. He has over 45
years experience in the investigation and
resolution of unusual and unexpected
geotechnical problems, often associated
with natural chemical and microbiological
processes. He has worked on geotechnical
processes including uid supported
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excavation for decades and is co-author of

the book Polymer Support Fluids in Civil
Engineering

Abstract
The 60th Rankine lecture will explore a wide
range of processes which have substantial
consequences in geotechnical engineering
and yet have received little formal attention.

The lecture will rst examine the behaviour

of support uids used in piling, diaphragm
walling, tunnelling and horizontal directional
drilling – processes which have been
strongly in uenced by analogies with oil well
drilling operations. However, the role of the
support uid in each of these applications is
di erent and it would be a mistake to
assume that the key properties are the same
for all of them. For example, for decades it
was assumed that an excavation support
uid must form a lter cake and should be
markedly denser than the surrounding
groundwater. The advent of polymer support
uids, which may have little tendency to
form a lter cake and have near water
densities, has shown these assumptions to
be simplistic.

From support uids, the next step is to

consider slurry trench cut-o walls and then
the impact of geotechnical activities on soils
more generally. On careful analysis, it is
apparent that many of the natural processes
that occur in soils are mediated by micro-
organisms. This adds new dimensions of
complexity as there can be multiple
outcomes. Construction processes that
in uence microbiological activity include
heating/cooling, tunnelling, dewatering,
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ooding, sealing with liners, grouting and

other introduction of chemicals. These are
processes that we regularly undertake
without a second thought for their potential
microbiological consequences. Fortunately,
these usually pass unnoticed and
innocuously but occasionally, as will be
shown, the e ects are at the least
unexpected!

Attending the lecture

If you plan to attend the Lecture in person,
please note:

Advance booking is not required.

Tea, co ee and biscuits will be served

between 4:00-5:30pm.

You are asked:

to refrain from entering the Theatres

before 4.45 pm
not to reserve seats for absent
colleagues
kindly remain in your place once you
have entered the Great Hall or Clore
Theatre.

Please note that the Relay to the over ow

Clore Lecture theatre will be the same as the
live streaming to the YouTube Channel.

Watching the lecture on line

If you plan to watch the lecture online:

The Lecture will be streamed live via

YouTube.

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