The third edition of Geotec Hanoi international conference, themed “Geotechnics for Sustainable Infrastructure Development,” recently broke its record for the number of abstracts submitted, with 200 submissions for a spot under the limelight. Dr. Phung Duc Long, chairman of the Vietnam Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (VSSMGE) and co-chairman of the Geotec Hanoi 2016 Organising Committee, talked to VIR’s Hoang Thach about the event’s unique appeal that lead to its skyrocketing popularity.
What is the unique selling point of Geotec Hanoi as an international conference on geotechnics?
Scientific development in Vietnam has not been considered important up to now, especially construction science. The country also lacks professional organisers to host such international conferences.
However, Geotec Hanoi, an international geotechnical conference that has been held in Vietnam thrice, is highly appreciated due to its qualified and professionally capable organisers and has great ambitions to become a regular professional conference having great influence on the civil engineering science.
Geotechnics is a very broad field which is present everywhere, such as foundation engineering for civil, industry, transport, and infrastructure works, ports, hydropower plants, and irrigation, just to mention a few areas. Plenty of the high-rise buildings under construction are erected on soft soil or have unstable foundations. Complex, large-scale transportation projects are also executed under extremely rigorous geotechnical conditions. Bridges, ports, and irrigation dam projects are also growing bigger and longer. We often hear about destruction wrought by landslides which have claimed numerous lives in Vietnam as well as around the world. These are all related to geotechnics.
In many countries over the world, for example Sweden, which are prone to landslides threatening human lives, people often install automatic warning systems using in-situ ground movement monitoring equipment. Another problem that many countries, including Vietnam, have to face is climate change which make geotechnics even more relevant. For example, rising sea levels and salinity issue new and urgent challenges. There is an intensive subcommittee discussing this issue at Geotec Hanoi 2016.
By Thanh Tung | Sources: vir.com
