Welcome to the April issue of our journal. In the February editorial I provided some early thoughts as new Honorary Editor. In this issue I can provide a brief update on panel developments, the current health of the journal and an introduction to the papers included in this issue.
In the previous issue I touched on the revised structure of the new subcommittees intended to enhance the involvement of all members of the Advisory Panel. I am pleased to advise that we have undertaken our first full committee meeting of 2009 as a remote teleconference. This type of meeting provides an opportunity for overseas panel contributions, reduced expenditure and, we trust, will reduce our carbon footprint! While there are undoubted benefits with this approach, the panel considered that face to face meetings are important and the remaining meetings this year will be a balance of the two formats.
The panel was advised that there are papers in the production system sufficient for the April and June editions and there were a pleasing number of new papers entering the process. There was an encouraging global origin of the newly submitted papers with those from Asia leading the count; I would encourage you all to follow this lead. New readership may be interested to note that panel members have also had one of the rewarding tasks of considering nominations for the best papers of 2008. There are some strong contenders and I shall provide further information in future issues. I would like to thank those Panel members who have undertaken timely completion of book reviews recently which will be published in future issues.
I would like to thank Dr Evert Jan den Haan for his efforts and assistance as an international panel member for the last three years. We shall advise his replacement later in the year.
There are four papers in this issue covering different aspects of geotechnical engineering. The first paper provides a case history dealing with the design and construction of a Linkspan bridge abutment at Heysham Port in Lancashire.1 The paper provides an insight into the multidiscipline nature of the work and particular information regarding the piled and rock anchored foundations. Oreste2 has undertaken research in the area of dowel reinforced open face tunnel support. He advises that there has been successful application of the technique for a number of years. While there are numerical methods that have been applied to such design, the paper sets out to provide a limit equilibrium method to determine dowel requirements for face stability; two case histories are considered in order to illustrate application of the approach.
Research is well represented by the final two papers. The paper by Consoli et al.3 is laboratory research into the relationships between lime and cement addition to soils. A number of parameters are considered and the authors provide some discussion regarding the application of the findings to construction. The final paper considers the estimation of undrained shear strength from CPTu testing in Korea. Kim et al.4 undertook an extensive in situ and laboratory testing programme to examine the application of a CPTu approach to estimation of undrained shear strength. The research used testing and published date from several other sites in order to examine and verify their correlations.
I would like to close by thanking our referees for their time and efforts during last year; we have included the listing of referees in this volume. They have reviewed many papers through the year and, although the authors receive credit for their work, recognition is also due to the referees, with the assessors, for their ‘behind the scenes’ efforts in the papers published. I trust you will find this issue of value.
