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Geotechnical News • March 2016
GEOTECHNICAL INSTRUMENTATION NEWS
In spite of a long record of embank-
ment construction throughout the
history of civil engineering, embank-
ments that are designed with a factor
of safety greater than unity fail
embarrassingly often. On the other
hand, some test embankments that are
designed to fail intentionally, never
do. Thus, it is not surprising that
instrumentation plays a significant role
in design and construction of embank-
ments on soft ground.
The most frequent uses of instrumen-
tation for embankments on soft ground
are to monitor the progress of consoli-
dation and to determine whether the
embankment is stable. If the calculated
factor of safety is likely to approach
unity, instrumentation will gener-
ally be installed to provide a warning
of any instability, thereby allowing
remedial measures to be implemented
before critical situations arise.
Summary of instruments that can
be considered for helping to provide
answers to possible geotechnical
questions
Table 3 lists the possible geotechnical
questions that may lead to the use of
instrumentation for embankments on
soft ground, together with possible
instruments that can be considered for
helping to provide answers to those
questions.
Report on 9th Symposium on Field Measurements in
Geomechanics
Andrew Ridley
The 2015 Symposium on Field Mea-
surements in Geomechanics (FMGM)
was held at the Sheraton on the Park
hotel in Sydney, Australia from 9
th
to 11
th
September 2015. Over 200
delegates from thirty-two countries
attended the symposium and 33 com-
panies showcased their products at the
impressive exhibition. The Sympo-
sium was preceded by two workshops,
one on InSAR and Emerging Tech-
nologies and the other on Radar and
Monitoring. These were attended by
over forty delegates. The Symposium
and the Workshops were organised by
the Australian Centre for Geomechan-
ics and sponsored by IDS, Geokon
and PSM. The organising committee,
Chaired by Professor Phil Dight and
Mark Fowler should be congratulated
on a magnificent achievement.
In his opening address to the Sym-
posium Mark Fowler pointed out
that “it is hard to escape the reality
that technology in everyday life is
advancing so rapidly, and it is not just
changing our lives, but in fact shap-
ing it. The pervasiveness of smart
phones and tablets, cloud computing,
drones—data vacuums of the air—
and the potential benefit and threat
of big data may individually and/or
collectively enrich and exploit our
lives. Geotechnical monitoring is no
exception. It’s hard not to think we
are in or approaching the golden age
of monitoring and there is no question
that these advances have, and will,
Friends gather for the traditional symposium dinner. At right front,
Elmo DiBiagio, the only person to have attended all nine FMGMs
