On behalf of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Physical Modelling in Geotechnics, welcome to the second issue of 2017. This issue contains the second part of the themed issue on advanced image analysis in physical modelling, which was introduced in the Editorial of the previous issue (Take and White, 2017). It is a mark of just how successful this call for papers was that we have been able to fill two issues with the highest quality papers. This would not have happened without the tireless effort of the themed issue champions, Professors Andy Take and David White, so on behalf of the Editorial Board and the physical modelling community, many thanks for all of your efforts.
In terms of the journal more widely, 2016 has been a year of further growth for the journal with an increase in the number of high-quality manuscripts both submitted for review and accepted and published online ahead of print. Having received our first Thomson Reuters Journal Impact Factor in 2015 (0·645), 2016 saw this increase to 1·045. We are now in the position where we have filled all of volume 17 with papers already accepted, even with an increase in issue size compared to previous years, with a number of further papers already typeset and available ahead of print at the journal's website (see http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/toc/jphmg/0/0). The journal will be taking further steps in 2018 to address the increasing popularity of the journal and number of high-quality submissions we are now receiving in order to reduce the time between acceptance and appearance in print.
However, I would like to reassure all potential contributors that while we work on this, we will continue to publish typeset contributions ahead of print shortly after acceptance, where they will be available online and fully citeable with digital object identifiers.
2016 saw the community's two regional conferences on physical modelling in geotechnics held – Eurofuge, at IFSTTAR, Nantes, France in June and Asiafuge, held at Tongji University, China in December. Myself and the Editorial Board would strongly encourage contributors to these conferences to consider submitting extended versions of their papers to the journal for consideration. Looking forward to next year, abstract submission for the next International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics, to be held at City, University of London, UK in July 2018 (City, University of London, 2017) has already closed. It is clear that research into physical modelling in geotechnics is clearly a very active area, and it looks as though the journal will be in a good position to continue publishing the latest developments in this area for years to come, and continue its growth.
As always, the Editorial Board and I would like to thank the physical modelling community for their continued support of the journal through the submission and review of papers (a list of reviewers for 2016 may be found online (ICE, 2017)), and to encourage further submissions, particularly where these relate to the development, assessment or application of new modelling techniques at all scales. I hope you enjoy the content of this issue.
