Editorial

I'm pleased to be sharing editorial activity this issue and while I wish to make some opening comments Graham Elliot has provided the main editorial. This year I believe we have been successful in increasing the opportunities for involvement of non-UK-based members in the editorial panel's processes and activities. Graham is a welcome addition to our panel who joined our editorial team in July this year and from his base in Atlanta, representing Golder Associates, has taken an active role for the committee since joining.

The issue opens with a very useful briefing regarding the progress towards a Register for UK Ground Engineering Professionals.1 Roger Thompson, a member of the British Geotechnical Association Executive Committee, summarises the background to the register, the current status and the next steps. He notes the support of three professional bodies and points to a range of potential beneficiaries from the register along with the opportunity for engineers to receive recognition for enhanced competence. As the briefing suggests I believe we should encourage ground engineers to support the scheme to ensure that the register becomes a success.

Finally, I was pleased to congratulate the authors of two award winning papers at the Institution of Civil Engineers and Paper Awards Ceremony held at Great George Street in October. They were published in Geotechnical Engineering last year and received the following awards.

H. G. Poulos A practical design approach for piles with negative friction.2 

B. D. Jones, A. H. Thomas, Y. S. Hsu and M. Hilar Evaluation of innovative sprayed-concrete-lined tunnelling.3 

Welcome to the December 2009 issue of Geotechnical Engineering.

I think you will find that this final issue of the year will be of interest across the broad spectrum of the readership of Geotechnical Engineering. The coverage includes papers on driven piles,4 retaining walls,5 ground treatment,6 and foundation dynamics.7 In addition to the professional issues covered in the briefing paper1 described by the editor in his opening comments, we also have discussions on tunnel face stabilisation8 and laboratory testing of ultra-soft soils,9 and a book review on geotechncial risk assessment. There is, I am sure, something here for everyone.

In the first paper, Khare and Gandhi4 present interface shear tests and pull-out tests on model piles to study the shear resistance of bitumen coated piles in sand. Vrecl-Kojc and Škrabl5 then propose a modified method for the design of cantilevered retaining walls using spaced piles. They study the pile-to-pile spacing and soil parameter issues that have an influence on the failure mechanism. The next paper by McCabe, Nimmons and Egan6 reviews case history field performance data for stone columns in soft clayey soils. Given the widespread use of vibro stone column techniques in the UK, and their increasing popularity for use on land development projects around the world, this paper will no doubt be of interest to many practitioners. The authors propose a new database of settlement reduction factors and they draw attention to important constructability issues. The final paper of this issue considers foundation dynamics with work by Ramesh et al.7 on the influence of a rigid base on the damping of a finite sand stratum during vertical vibration tests on model footings.

As an avid reader of the journal over the years, and as a new member of the editorial advisory panel, it is perhaps appropriate for me to comment on my new insight into the behind the scenes working of the journal. Such a billing of papers and discussions would not be possible were it not for the voluntary efforts of so many authors, reviewers and assessors. The systems in place to permit the on-line submission, review and assessment of manuscripts, in a timely and co-ordinated way, are impressive and the process and procedures are underpinned by dedicated editorial co-ordination staff at Thomas Telford. Having seen this process at work, I am delighted to encourage prospective authors to submit their manuscripts in the knowledge that great efforts are made to ensure that Geotechnical Engineering continues to live up to its overarching aims and scope, namely: to ‘publish papers of the highest quality' and ‘… on all aspects of geotechnical engineering which are of immediate use or of general interest to the general civil, structural or geotechnical engineering practitioner working in design or construction…'.

On behalf of the editorial advisory panel members, I hope you enjoy this issue, and I trust that you will permit me to thank everyone for their efforts in 2009. We look forward to serving the journal in the New Year.