This training session was co-organised with AMITOS, the Mexican Association of tunnel and underground space engineers and was held online over 4 half-days.
On the 27th and 29th April, and the 4th and 6th of May, over half-days, a training session on 'Calculation methods in tunnel design' was held online in conjunction with the Mexican tunnelling association, AMITOS. The objective of this training session was to present the design methods commonly used to assess tunnel stability. As such, it required no prior knowledge or specific skills in numerical simulation or calculation methods as it was designed to be an introduction to these issues.
The first half-day of training began with a welcome to the training given by Mario Salazar, President of AMITOS and Alberto Ramirez, Vice-president of training and congresses. This welcome was then followed by a introductory presentation given by Robert Galler, ITA-CET Comittee chairman, who explained the different types of ground soil and gave an overview of different calculation methods. Chrysothemis Paraskevopoulou (Professor at Leeds University) followed with an in-depth presentation on Geomechanical classifications. Questions were answered after each presentation.
The second half-day continued with a presentation by Chrysothemis on Rock stability analysis, which included slope failure modes, equilibrium, and application fields and limits of the method. Nicolas Berthoz from the CETU (France) then gave a presentation on the modulus reaction method.
For the third half-day Daniela Boldini, professor at Sapienza university in Rome, spoke about the convergence confinement method, covering deteming the ground reaction curve, the lining confinement curve and the evaluation of the stress release coefficient. She finished her presentation with an overview of the scope and limits of this method before answering the participants questions. After this, Francois Laigle, from BG Engineers Consulting gave a detailed presentation on Numerical methods.
On the fourth and last session of the training, Wout Broere from Delft University presented on Face Stability and Benoit Jones of Inbye Engineering gave a presentation on Settlement before the session finished with a conclusion by Professor Robert Galler.
The session, held online and run in Zoom, gathered over 180 participants, mostly of which were Mexican, but also a few participants from other countries. Participants enjoyed the easiness of logging in to a session each morning and lecturers enjoyed being able to present in Mexico, without even stepping out of their office! A translator was also on hand to translate the presenters lectures into Spanish and to translate the occasional Spanish question into English for the presenters!
The ITACET Foundation would like to thank AMITOS for their excellent organisation of the event, the speakers for the time dedicated to the training and to the participants for joining!
A still image from the webinar - Nicholas Berthoz presenting on the second half-day
ITA Lecturers
