Geotechnical engineering spans the full range of physical scales, from molecular interaction to mountainous landslides and so remains a field of great uncertainty.
The latest international research on the complex relationships between the micro and macro aspects of geomechanics has just been published in a themed issue (2 Oct) of ICE’s new online journal Géotechnique Letters
A question of scale
According to Itai Einav of Sydney University and University College, London:
‘Many large-scale geotechnical problems require us to embrace different research tools, each appropriate to a different length scale. However, soils are rich in features interacting across the scales: from asperity size to grain size, from the length of force chains to the thickness of shear bands, and from laboratory samples to the full engineering dimension.’
In his editorial, Einav states that ‘…we can gain much from a more accurate description of these features at the finer scales, but a more fundamental issue is to develop models appreciative of the cross-over between the scales - theories that can scale up as well as down.’
This themed issue is free online until 31 December 2012. It includes 12 papers submitted by prominent international researchers in the emerging field of geomechanics in April and May 2012.
About Géotechnique Letters
ICE launched Géotechnique Letters as a fast-track refereed journal in 2011 to foster quick exchange of the latest ideas and international advances in all aspects of geotechnical engineering.
For more information, please contact the ICE journals manager Ben Ramster on +44 20 7665 2242 or at journals@ice.org.uk.