Welcome to
the ISSMGE TC 302 website
The members of the Technical Committee, TC
302, on Forensic Geotechnical Engineering of the ISSMGE cordially welcome you
to our website.
The International Society for Soil
Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) constituted a Technical Committee (TC) on Forensic
Geotechnical Engineering (FGE) in 2005. During the first four years it was
designated as TC40 and is now designated as TC302. This
committee has conducted five international seminars on FGE. The theme of
all the events is “Forensic Geotechnical Engineering”. Lessons learned from failures of
different types of geotechnical structures that can be attributed to any one or
more of the topics below can be highlighted. Manuscripts highlighting the
failures due natural hazards, lack of codal
provisions, challenges in geo-environmental engineering and rock engineering
are welcome. During the conference,
the following ten topics and their role in Forensic Geotechnical Engineering
will be discussed.
Forensic geotechnical engineering involves
scientific, legalistic investigations and deductions to detect the causes as
well as the process of distress in a structure, which are attributed to geotechnical
origin. Such a critical analysis will provide answers to “what went
wrong, when, where, why, how, and by whom”. Cases of remedied
installations, particularly those which, fall under public / or government
category, where the analysis and evaluation of adopted remedial measures with
regard to their effectiveness and economy may be subjected to judicial scrutiny
also, fall under this purview. It also gives strong inputs to improve designs.
The normally adopted standard procedures of testing, analysis, design and
construction are not adequate for the forensic analysis in majority of cases.
The forensic investigations involve fresh field and laboratory tests apart from
collection of all available data. The test parameters and design assumptions
will have to be representative of the actual conditions encountered at site.
While the designs are mostly stress based, the forensic analysis has to be
deformation based. The forensic geotechnical engineer (who is different than
the expert witness) has to be not only thorough in his
field of specialization, but also be familiar with legal procedures.
Please click on the following links for
more information
for Terms
of Reference, Membership List and Additional Information on Forensic
Geotechnical Engineering
International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical
Engineering (ISSMGE)
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