Ground Improvement: Design, Quality Control and Acceptance Testing
Dear colleagues,
The opportunity of materializing the link between the ISSMGE TC 102 (in-situ testing technical committee) and the ISSMGE TC 211(Ground improvement technical committee) will be offered at the GeoMEast 2018 International Congress and Exhibition to be held in Cairo, Egypt during the period of November 24 to 28, 2018 at Marriott Mena House Hotel [https://geomeast.org/].
One of the terms of reference for the TC 211 is Design, quality control and acceptance testing. The joint effort of both TC’s became thus a must. The form of “workshop” has been selected by the conference organizer and the Chairs with the respective core members of the two TC’s.
The themes will be closely related to in-situ tests for design, quality control and quality assurance for various ground improvement works. If you are interested to contribute in this workshop, kindly send a two-page abstract along with a short bio at [[email protected]] by October 7th. The registration of the selected speakers may be waived, based on the committee advice.
The workshop is scheduled on Sunday, 25-November, at 02.00PM.
Appropriate lectures addressing the different ground improvement techniques will be selected to develop a 20 minutes contribution. The PowerPoint presentations will be part of an E-Book provided at the workshop.
Look forward to welcoming you all to Cairo this November!
Mr. Serge Varaksin
Conseiller Scientifique
Past Chairman TC-211 ISSMGE, Core Member TC102
Serge VARAKSIN – M.Sc
Past Chairman T.C.211 Core member TC 211 and TC 102
Serge Varaksin was born in 1943 in Belgium.
After completing his civil engineering degree he was admitted on a workstudy program at Northwestern University Evanston - USA. He completed his masters degree under Professor Jorg Osterberg and published his research on relative density below groundwater table in the ASTM, STP 523, Book..
His military duties were done in the laboratory of the Belgian Military school where he discovered the pressuremeter and was assigned the task to perform two pressuremeter borings to 43meter depth by …….hand auger.
He joined the Menard company in 1973 after a short passage by Fondedile Belgium and since then, devoted his career in creating the present network of companies of Menard around the world, applying the ideas of Louis Menard and Jean-Marie Cognon, as Overseas Manager and later Deputy General Manager of this group. He has recently retired but continues to act as expert adviser expert on ground improvement projects and lecturer.
Author of over 50 international publications, he has specialized in ground improvement techniques of Dynamic Consolidation, Replacement, Vacuum Consolidation, CMC, Stone Columns and is developing an analysis of man-made fills not normally consolidated. He has given several keynote lectures on those subjects in international conferences and participated in several touring lectures as organised by the ISSMGE among which Egypt,South Africa,Ghana,Nigeria and delivered key note lectures on most continents.
In 2006, he was given the task to chair of the T.C. 17 on ground improvement by Professor Seco Pinto, Chairman of the ISSMGE and to participate to the state of the art report for the XVII International Conference for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering of Alexandria in 2009.
In 2010, he was reconducted as Chairman of the T.C. Ground Improvement by professor Jean-Louis Briaud, President of the ISSMGE and organised in June 2012 with professor J. Maertens and N. Huybrechts an international symposium and short courses on ground improvement attended by over 300 persons from 36 countries.
In 2013, he chaired the ground improvement session at the 18th international conference on soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering in Paris, and presently is core member of the TC 211 and recently the TC 102.
His knowledge of the pressuremeter was an asset to the Apageo Company, manufacture of the Menard equipment and he was retained as scientific advisor.