On behalf of the Editorial Board of Geotechnical Research (GeoRes), we welcome our readers to the second issue of volume 8 (2021). GeoRes, being the first gold Open Access (OA) journal of the Institution of Civil Engineers, maximises the impact of research articles and knowledge-based case studies in a wide range of geotechnical challenges. Like most other open-access journals, the author/s has/have to pay a publication charge for publishing in GeoRes. However, it offers a range of discounts for disadvantaged groups of researchers, particularly researchers from International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) countries. Such a discount policy aims to partially eliminate an economic barrier for disseminating research outputs from developing countries. With this, we have seen a steady increase in contributions from around the world, particularly the fast-growing regions of Asia Pacific, Arabian Peninsula, Europe and North America. These publications in the last few issues covered several key areas such as innovative ground soil improvement work (Ciardi et al., 2020; Feng et al., 2020; Guo et al., 2020; Weng et al., 2020; Xie et al., 2020), complex soil–structure interaction (Ge et al., 2020; Inazumi et al., 2021; Shiau and Hassan, 2020; Xu et al., 2020; Zhang, 2020) and reliable laboratory testing/model development (Feng and Liu, 2021; Li et al., 2020; O’Kelly and Nogal, 2020; Osman et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2021) alongside other interesting topics.
As you may be aware, ICE Publishing is, at the time of writing, in the midst of migrating the article-tracking system from Editorial Manager (EM) to a new platform called ReView. Between March and May 2021, articles submitted for review by way of the EM system have been progressively run-down as the transfer of manuscripts to ReView occurs. There should be minimal disruption to the operations of GeoRes, but in case delays occur, due to unforeseen circumstances, authors are kindly requested to contact the publishing team.
There is another piece of good news worth sharing. In the recent update of the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) for the year 2020, GeoRes has achieved a commendable score of 0.652, which improved its rank from Q3 in 2019 to Q2 in 2020 and approaching Q1 (Scimago Journal & Country Rank, 2021). This feat is indeed a reflection of the dedication and hard work of our respected reviewers, our tireless publisher as well as our esteemed authors for their valuable articles. Let’s use this outcome as a motivation for us to scale greater heights with GeoRes in the coming years!
The second issue of volume 8 (2021) includes two articles related to construction challenges and data analysis.
Lopes and Dias (2021) present a fascinating study of the 120 years of historical development of the port of Leixões, the second most important port of Portugal. This describes the main geotechnical challenges and their mitigation for excavated docks on the mouth of the River Leça. The authors suggest that despite a rigorous effort on monitoring and surveying of the port structures, including pre- and post-construction, there were always unanticipated issues, and the lesson of the port of Leixões is to continue research to improve knowledge in geotechnical engineering, particularly in the field of harbour and marine geotechnics.
Guo et al. (2021) used Weibull distribution to describe the damage evolution and the principle of force equilibrium to develop the shear damage softening model at the soil–structure interface. They explain the physical meaning of model parameters and their relation with normal stress, and then propose a method to determine each parameter. A subroutine was implemented in the Abaqus software platform to validate numerical simulation using experimental data. The authors claim their approach will be convenient for engineering design and practical application.
