100 Years On
100 YEARS ON
Note – material in this webpage have been largely taken from an HTC project lecture, presented at the 18th African Regional Conference on Soil Mechanics and geotechnical Engineering, 18th ARCSMGE, in Algiers, Algeria, in 2024.
As a profession, we have significantly developed in the past century and remain committed to advancing the common good. It is undoubtedly true that we (and others) find ourselves in challenges that are novel and also increasingly global in nature. A key objective of the Phase 4, 100 Years on, is to use the ISSMGE HTC project and the ISSMGE cohorts that have worked alongside the project to reimagine our roles and responsibilities in the coming 100 years. A critical asset in this endeavour will be the operational knowledge and background of the ISSMGE and its global membership.
To benefit and strengthen the development of Phase 4, a framework of five elements (see below) has been identified to work through in creating outputs that can be both compelling and strategic to our present and future needs. The rest of this document brief explanations of each of the elements, and concludes with some thoughts on the overall role of Future Focus.
Emerging challenges
Emerging challenges have defined the various advancements in geotechnical engineering, from remediating failed railway cuttings, subway construction in cities, foundations for tall buildings, earthquake damage, industrial developments, offshore work, remediation of contamination and tailings failures, to name a few. Underlying this has been a constant and steady coming together of the world, facilitated by travel and internet connections, and accelerated by both global challenges (climate change) and technological advancements (artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), robotization). Clearly identifying and articulating key emerging challenges, both globally and in each ISSMGE region, may help align and direct the geotechnical community worldwide.
Society expectations and aspirations
Making an effort to understand society’s expectations and aspirations can help us better prepare the profession for the future. It can give us direction that can be a “north point” in uncertain and challenging times. Initial work on understanding of society expectations and aspirations can be through gathering information held in public documents and publications that governments and other organizations have created about what they expect for the society and what they aspire for. Discussions with various stakeholders can help to further improve our collective understanding of local, regional and societal expectations and aspirations.
Our technological developments
There is a recurring debate between geotechnical practitioners and researchers on the role and relevance of research to geotechnical engineering. One view, possibly widely held, is that there is a time lag between the evolution of technology and its application (Poulos, 2022). Initially, the time lag between knowledge creation and its application may be relatively small, but as knowledge creation passes through an ‘intensive’ phase and then moves to a ‘creep’ phase, the time lag of practical application can increase significantly.
The HTC provides a unique vantage point for thinking about technological developments in practice through the work of Phase 1 - “Contributions” and Phase 2 - “Discovery”. There may not end up being a commonly accepted way to understand technological developments in geotechnical engineering; rather, through this exercise, we may be able to better integrate theory and practice for the benefit of society.
Our imagination and role plays
The construction of a time capsule for a future generation, 50 to 150 years from now, brings to mind the following question: what would the world, and geotechnical engineering look like then? This will need to be created from our collective imagination, and the works of others in related and unrelated fields. This is not mere idle curiosity; for the time capsule to have some use for future generations, we ought to be able to form a view, of what could be both understandable to future generations and be of value for the geotechnical engineering profession of future generations. This goes to more than what will survive (in material terms) the test of time.
We can also consider practicing role plays when looking at the various possibilities the future may hold. Role plays have been used in educational settings to help students learn to effectively engage in a professional environment and to help prepare them for future roles in industry (Pype et al, 2019). In our case, role plays can help prepare us for the challenges and opportunities of future. It is through a collective understanding of the various possibilities that the future holds, and our potential responses to them, that we can better support our statements to the world about the role of geotechnical engineering, and back them up by our actions.
Our philosophical approaches
Bulleit et al (2015) noted that “Philosophy of engineering is a growing field whose ideas should be considered by the engineering community. Because of the heuristic nature of engineering practice, philosophical thinking, including reflection, is an important way to enhance engineering judgment.” They have structured discussions in their paper by dividing engineering philosophy into a series of overlapping subtopics, beginning with the basic question of how engineering should be demarcated from other fields, followed by engineering education, models, uncertainty, codes of practice, heuristics and judgement, competence and experience, and ending with a discussion of what constitutes quality in engineering.
Documenting our thinking and practice in the above sub topics, from an actual and planned viewpoint, can help create a framework in which future generations can test their in-place practices and identify and evaluate departures. This process can also enable the present geotechnical community to benefit from an understanding and appreciation of baseline philosophies currently in operation.
Conclusions
The HTC project is an open-ended exercise in that one does not know when a satisfactory point has been reached, and the benefits have been optimised. Constraints such as operating within one or two presidential terms help focus effort. The profession is now at the end of its first 100 years, in conjunction with much change in the external environment. It is our opinion that action to create a future focus should be undertaken and work should be done to the level required. Hence, we invite geotechnical engineering community worldwide to join the efforts of the HTC project in this exciting exploration of our future.
References
· Bulleit, W., Schmidt, J., Alvi, I., Nelson, E., Rodriguez-Nikl, T. (2015) Philosophy of Engineering: What It Is and Why It Matters, J. Prof. Issues Eng. Educ. Pract., 2015, 141(3): 02514003
· Pype, M.L., Hester, B., Middleton, D., Carvalho, G. (2019) Role-play learning tool to enhance student’s view of industry operation complexity, Proceedings of the AAEE2019 Conference Brisbane, Australia