Episode Description

In this episode, the two NGIers Tone Smaavik and Georg H. Erharter talk with Robert Thurner from Keller about onshore geotechnics in Scandinavia. The conversation starts with a discussion about specialities of Scandinavian ground conditions and typical construction methods. We then head on to new standards like the new EC7 and sustainability. Finally we talk about working culture in Scandinavian geotechnics including contractor – client interaction and the importance of having fun at work!

SPEAKERS

Dr. Robert Thurner is originally from Austria and finished his PhD at the Institute of Soil Mechanics, Foundation Engineering and Computational Geotechnics at the Graz University of Technology in 2000. He then started working at the construction company Keller, built up a R&D department in South-East Europe and worked for the company as regional manager in various European countries. From 2014-2018 he was the technical director for Keller in the Middle East. Since 2018 he is the head of the technical office and special projects and vice VD for Keller Grundläggning in Sweden.

Tone Ratcliffe Smaavik MSc is a geotechnical engineer from Norway who holds a master's in civil engineering from the University of Bristol (UK). After doing offshore geotechnical site investigations for the former company GEMS, she moved to NGI in 2012 and has been department head in the field of onshore geotechnics since 2021.

Dr. Georg H. Erharter is an engineering geologist at NGI where he is working in a broad range of fields from tunnelling to offshore wind foundation design. He holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from the Graz University of Technology (Austria) where he was dealing with machine learning for geotechnics and he is generally engaged with using modern technology to solve long standing problems of the field.

Robert Thurner

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-thurner-0a605743/

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert-Thurner-2 

Tone Smaavik

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tone-ratcliffe-smaavik-2333633/ 

Georg H. Erharter

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georg-h-erharter-b514b4125/

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fb3-U50AAAAJ&hl=en 

Contact: [email protected] 

Special Issue in the journal “Geomechanics and Tunnelling”: Volume 18, Issue 2, April 2025: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/18657389/2025/18/2

In this episode, NGI's Dr Zhongqiang Liu speaks with Prof. Kenichi Soga from the University of Berkeley California, who just delivered the 63rd Rankine lecture on March 19, 2025. They discuss how emerging data and sensing technologies can enhance the safety and cost-effectiveness of infrastructure assets, constitutive models, and geotechnics from the micro to macro scale. The conversation also highlights major advancements and research gaps in geotechnics.

"My career is a consequence of opportunities," says Suzanne Lacasse, a highly esteemed engineer in the field of geotechnics.

Lars Andresen, CEO of NGI, interviews his predecessor and colleague, Suzanne Lacasse. Together, they dive into her fascinating life story, why she chose to work at NGI, and how her work has fundamentally shaped modern geotechnics, particularly in applying probabilistic and risk-based methods to geotechnical problems.

Hear her views on how significant geotechnical advancements have transformed geotechnical work, gaps we should be aware of, and why, long after retirement, she prefers work from retirement. 

This episode is also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/lq1sWc7jDjM

In this episode, NGI’s Dr. Georg H. Erharter talks with Prof. Herbert Einstein from MIT about tunnel design methods. They start with a historical look back to ancient tunnel design and construction and then slowly transition over to modern day tunnelling, different design paradigms and ultimately the future of tunnel design including artificial intelligence, research gaps and advice for future tunnel engineers. 

SPEAKERS

Prof. Herbert Einstein finished his PhD at ETH Zürich in 1966 and is leading the “Herbert Einstein Research Group“ at MIT since 1973. His main fields of work are rock mechanics, engineering geology, underground construction, field measurements, laboratory experiments, numerical- and analytical modelling. He received numerous prices for his teaching and research including the “Müller Lecture award” in 1999 from the International Society for Rock Mechanics and the “Outstanding Contributions to Rock Mechanics award” from the American Rock Mechanics Association in 2006. He is still actively working on tunnelling research and recently published a new book about Tunnel Design Methods together with Antonio Bobet (see link below).

Dr. Georg H. Erharter is an engineering geologists at NGI. He brought practical experience from large alpine tunnel projects such as the Brenner- or Semmering Base tunnels to NGI and today is working in both engineering geological consultancy and research. He holds a PhD in Civil Engineering where he was dealing with machine learning for geotechnics and he is generally engaged with using modern technology to solve long standing problems of the field.

Georg H. Erharter

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georg-h-erharter-b514b4125/

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fb3-U50AAAAJ&hl=en

Herbert Einstein

Research group website: https://herbert-einstein.org/

Contact: [email protected]

New Tunnel Design Methods book:

Bobet, Antonio; Einstein, Herbert H. (2024): Tunnel design methods. First edition. Boca Raton, London, New York: CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group. https://www.routledge.com/Tunnel-Design-Methods/Bobet-Einstein/p/book/9781032358444

Offshore wind has grown on a massive global scale. The growth of offshore wind is now more than a European, Chinese, or American story as 'emerging markets' across Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and more European countries are embracing offshore wind as a solution to providing clean, affordable power.

NGI is an international leader in offshore geotechnics and a renowned advisor for the offshore industry related to field development and operations. Focusing on the geotechnical aspects, what are the market trends? What differences do we find in soil conditions, and how is NGI helping the industry deal with new materials? How can regional technical insight bring relevant knowledge into projects and ensure we don't reinvent the wheel?

Thomas Langford, Noel Boylan and Catalina Maldonado represent NGI's global leadership team of the offshore energy market. In this episode, we will touch upon, amongst others:

• The differences between floating and bottom-fixed wind technology, and also how we see some similarities in foundation and anchor concepts.
• How do regional geohazards and risks, like earthquakes and tsunamis, require specific expertise?
• The importance of desk studies in supporting critical project decisions like foundation concept and how ground models are used through the project lifecycle as a tool to inform stakeholders and facilitate design.
• The importance of different instrumentation and measurement systems, reflecting on the different project stages where these can play a role.

In this episode NGI’s Georg H. Erharter and Tom F. Hansen talk about rock mass classification for tunnel construction and other applications. We start with a look back into early developed rock mass classification systems and then move forward up to state of the art applications of machine learning for rock mass classification and characterization that can be used today and perhaps will shape the future of this field.

SPEAKERS

Georg H. Erharter and Tom F: Hansen are both engineering geologists working in the rock engineering department of NGI. Tom F: Hansen has substantial practical experience ranging from rock engineering in coal mining at Svalbard up to engineering geological work for the Norwegian public railway authority. Today, he is finishing a PhD about the application of machine learning for rock engineering. Georg H. Erharter has brought practical experience from large alpine tunnel projects such as the Brenner- or Semmering Base tunnels to NGI and today is working in both engineering geological consultancy and research. He holds a PhD in Civil Engineering where he dealt with machine learning for geotechnics, and he is generally engaged with using modern technology to solve long standing problems of the field.

Georg H. Erharter

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georg-h-erharter-b514b4125/

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fb3-U50AAAAJ&hl=en

Tom F. Hansen

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-f-hansen-62ba0878/

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=aqo4kowAAAAJ&hl=en

Contact: [email protected] 

1st international Rock Mass Classification Conference (RMCC): https://www.rmcc2024.com/

MENTIONED PUBLICATIONS:

Bieniawski, Z. T. (1973): Engineering Classification of Jointed Rock Masses. In Civil Engineer in South Afrika, pp. 335–343.

Erharter, G. H.; Hansen, Tom F.; Qi, Shengwen; Bar, Neil; Marcher, Thomas (2023): A 2023 perspective on Rock Mass Classification Systems. In Wulf Schubert, Alexander Kluckner (Eds.): Proceedings of the 15th ISRM Congress 2023 & 72nd Geomechanics Colloquium. CHALLENGES IN ROCK MECHANICS AND ROCK ENGINEERING. 15th ISRM Congress 2023 & 72nd Geomechanics Colloquium. Salzburg / Austria, 9.-14. October 203. Austrian Society for Geomechanics, pp. 758–763. Available online at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374554022_A_2023_perspective_on_Rock_Mass_Classification_Systems

Erharter, Georg H.; Bar, Neil; Hansen, Tom F.; Jain, Sumit; Marcher, Thomas (2024): International distribution and development of rock mass classification - a review. (IN REVIEW).

Hansen, T. F.; Aarset, A. (2024): Unsupervised machine learning for data-driven classification of rock mass using drilling data: How can a data-driven system handle limitations in existing rock mass classification systems? (NON PEER REVIEWED PREPRINT); Available online at http://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.02631v1.

Hansen, Tom F.; Liu, Zhongqiang; Torresen, Jim (2024): Predicting rock type from MWD tunnel data using a reproducible ML-modelling process. In Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 152, p. 105843. Available online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088677982400261X?via%3Dihub.

ISO 14689:2018: Geotechnical investigation and testing Identification, description and classification of rock

NGI (2015): Handbook The Q-system. Rock mass classification and support design. Available online at: https://www.ngi.no/en/research-and-consulting/infrastructure-container/tunnels-and-the-q-system/

ÖGG (2010): Guideline for the Geotechnical Design of Underground Structures with Conventional Excavation. Ground characterization and coherent procedure for the determination of excavation and support during design and construction. Translated from version 2.1. 2.1th ed. Salzburg. Available online at https://s3.nl-ams.scw.cloud/assets.oegg.at/attachments/ckdy7segc00o218lmcntn1266-geotech-rili-10-engl-endg%C3%BClitgeversion.pdf

Discount code for Code Academy Courses:NGITECHNICALPODCAST

https://www.ngi.no/en/events/ngi-code-academy/grabasics-of-parametric-modelling-for-geotechnics-with-grasshopper/

https://www.ngi.no/en/events/ngi-code-academy/applied-machine-learning-using-geotechnical-data/

Sixty years ago, the American writer, scientist, and ecologist Rachel Carson published her book, Silent Spring, exposing the hazards of the pesticide DDT on the environment. For the first time, the need to regulate the industry to protect the environment became widely accepted, and environmentalism was born. 

Sarah Hale and Hans Peter Arp lead the EU research and innovation project ZeroPM to tackle pollution from thousands of hazardous PM substances. They ask: What would be different had Rachel Carson discovered PFAS rather than DDT? And what key lesson should be learned to avoid more Silent Springs from happening?  

NGI's Per Sparrevik was in 2015, with two NGI colleagues, inducted into the Offshore Energy Centre's Hall of Fame in Galveston, Texas, USA for his work on suction anchors. He has been part of the development of suction buckets foundations from the early days in oil and gas projects to today's use for offshore wind turbines. Rasmus Klinkvort has talked with Per about suction buckets in general and the transition from oil and gas to offshore wind turbine projects. If you are interested in suction caisson design for offshore wind turbines this is the podcast for you.

The PIle Soil Analsis (PISA) project was a big joint research project performed some years ago. Today the project is finalized and the outcome of the project is reported as open access article. The project has had a big influence on the industry and how we design monopiles today. Rasmus Klinkvort has talked with the academic leader of the project Professor Byron Byrne from the University of Oxford.  He explains the principle and findings of the projects and also looks ahead to where new research on cyclic loading is heading. If you are interested in monopile design for offshore wind turbines this is the podcast for you.