Damage to buildings and infrastructure due to geotechnical failures has been observed in all the major earthquakes of the last half-century, causing many thousands of deaths and many billions of dollars of economic damage. Since the 1964 Niigata earthquake, this has resulted in a substantial research effort to understand soil behaviour under cyclic loading, to predict the onset of damaging phenomena such as soil liquefaction and to design foundations and geotechnical systems to survive earthquake loading.
While this research effort has continued for the last 50 years, great advances have recently been made using state-of-the-art laboratory testing, dynamic centrifuge modelling and high-quality field investigations of system performance during earthquakes, such as those in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2010 and 2011 and the Tohoku earthquake in Japan in 2011. The ability of infrastructure to continue to perform post-earthquake is of particular importance in allowing disaster mitigation efforts to relieve suffering rapidly in the affected areas. It was also shown to play a major role in resisting multi-hazards during the Tohoku earthquake, after which coastal defences already damaged by earthquake shaking were required to resist tsunami loading.
The response to this symposium in print was substantial, with abstracts being submitted by authors throughout the world. Following the standard review process of Géotechnique, ten papers have been accepted for publication in this issue of the journal, with several further papers missing the deadline to be ready for publication according to the planned schedule. These remaining papers have been moved to the regular publication process of the journal and will appear in future issues. The papers selected for this symposium cover a wide range of topics, from liquefaction prediction based on site investigation to the interaction between buildings owing to coupling through the soil between them. Despite the wide range of subjects, these papers all share the similarity of advancing the current state of the art in geotechnical earthquake engineering research.
This issue will be accompanied by a full-day symposium to be held on 15th June 2015 at the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in London. The symposium will include two sessions: on field behaviour of soils during earthquakes and model testing of geotechnical systems during earthquakes. The ten papers will all be presented by their authors on the day, enabling a wide-ranging discussion to take place around current issues in geotechnical earthquake engineering. I believe that the symposium will provide an excellent opportunity to discuss the current state of the art in geotechnical earthquake engineering and future opportunities in both research and practice. The meeting is open to all interested people, and those wishing to take part are encouraged to register by visiting ice.org.uk/geosymp15 or emailing events@ice.org.uk.
It was my great pleasure to act as chairman of the Géotechnique advisory panel sub-committee and to have been guest editor of this issue of Géotechnique. I wish to thank the other members of the sub-committee who have assisted me over the last 18 months for their enormous amount of effort in making this issue and event occur. I would also like to thank all those who have reviewed papers for their thorough and timely reviews. Finally I would like to thank Craig Schaper, Journals Editor at ICE Publishing, for his great efforts in efficiently organising this issue as well as for his ongoing efforts in making Géotechnique a success.
Stuart Haigh Cambridge University
Symposium in print sub-committee chairman
Dr Stuart Haigh, Cambridge University, UK
Symposium in print sub-committee members
Professor Angelo Amorosi, Politecnico di Bari, Italy Professor George Gazetas, National Technical University Athens, Greece Dr Erdin Ibraim, Bristol University, UK Professor Boris Jeremic, University of California, Davis, USA Dr Jonathan Knappett, University of Dundee, UK Dr Stavroula Kontoe, Imperial College, UK Dr William Murphy, University of Leeds, UK Professor Ellen Rathje, University of Texas at Austin, USA Professor Ikuo Towhata, University of Tokyo, Japan Dr Liam Wotherspoon, The University of Auckland, New Zealand
