Newsletter #19 - July 2014

Newsletter #19 - July 2014
 
   President's Address

 

I would like to greet the beginning of the actions of the Foundation in its newly opened “second office” in Torino within the new Politecnico office in Lingotto.
 
For many years, the Foundation has supported the Postgraduate master Course on Mechanized Tunnelling of the Politecnico in granting a scholarship to one of the students every year. This cooperation should increase, for example with the organization of a “Foundation week” during the Master with the participation of many foreign lecturers
The Council held its May meeting in the new office and met on this occasion the Vice Chancellor of the Politecnico, Romano BORCHIELLINI, as well as the Director of the Master Course, Daniele PEILA who is also the Vice-President of the ITA-AITES Association.
 
Other joint actions are under discussion concerning especially the development of actions of Continuing Education, the Training of Trainers and the preparation of a Training Session on “Conventional Tunnelling and Auxiliary measures” which will be organized next 16-17 January 2015 on the occasion of a meeting of the ITA-AITES Executive Council.

 

   ITACET Foundation AWARD

 

In 2014,the ITACET Foundation decided to grant an annual Award to an institution, company or person in recognition of its involvement in co-organizing with the ITACET Foundation training activities in the fields of tunnelling and underground space.

We are proud to announce that for the year 2014 the ITACET Foundation decided to grant two Awards. 

For its frequent and fruitfull collaboration with the ITACET Foundation, notably by organizing several training session in Riyadh, the ITA-AITES Member nation of Saudi Arabia represented by its delegate, Mr. Albisher..

In recognition of the considerable work and profound involvement in the strategic development and training activities of the ITACET Foundation since the origin, to Prof. Andre Assis, Professor of Civil engineering at the University of Brasilia and former ITACET Foundation chairman .

On behalf of ITACET Foundation President h.e. Abdullah Al-Mogbel, ITACET Foundation Vice President Mr. Piergiorgio Grasso award the 2014 distinction to (L. to R.)  Mr. Albisher Saudi Arabia Member Nation delegate and to Prof. Andre Assis.

The ITACET Foundation awards were granted during the opening ceremony of the ITA-AITES general assembly 2014 held in Iguassu Falls, Brazil.

 

   Training Session in Mexico City

 

Last month, on 26th and 27th of June, AMITOS (Mexican Tunnelling Association) held a very successful training session on the topic of Mechanized Tunnelling.
 
The training session co-organized with the ITACET Foundation gathered a numerous audience of professional at the Centro Asturiano of Mexico City.
 
The Training session opened with welcome allocution from   Mr. Suárez Fino, President of AMITOS and Mr. Eskesen, President of ITA-AITES. 
 
To lecture on the four chosen topics, “Introduction and Overview of Mechanized Tunneling”, “Improvement & Support Systems” and “Operation and Management”, the Foundation delegated five lecturers, namely and in the order of their intervention:  Messrs. Søren Eskesen, Lars Babendererde, Lok Home, Felix Amberg and Werner Burger. Manufacturers’ delegates, Mrs Karin Baeppler for Herrenknecht Gmbh and Mr. Lok Home for The Robbins Company intervened during the “Management and Operation” session to present and comment real world examples on, respectively, Tunnelling in soft ground and Rock Tunneling. 
 
We heartily thank our friends from AMITOS for their excellent organization, our lecturers and the manufacturers’ delegates for their time and dedication to pass along their knowledge, and last but not least, all the participants to this training session.

 

   Training session at the WTC14

ITACET Training session WTC 2014 - Iguassu Falls, Brazil - Tunnels for EnergyOver 140 participants attended the two-day training session held at the ITA World Tunnel Congress 2014 in Foz do Iguaçu.

Held in the Bourbon conference center in Foz do Iguaçu, the training session was co-organized by CBT (Brazilian Tunnelling Association), ITA-AITES ITA-CET Committee and the ITACET Foundation.

The training session's aim was to enhance the education and update the knowledge of graduate students and young professional. 
Considering the increasing demand for underground works related to the production, storage and transportation of energy this year, the training session program focused on "tunnels for energy". Read the program of the event to know more>>

An international panel of experts see here for the complete list of the lecturers>> gathered by by the ITA-CET Committee lectured on various subjects. The lectures were organized in four sessions : "Basic Concepts of Rock Tunnels & Hydro Schemes" and "Pressure Tunnels, Shafts & Caverns" during the first day, "Pressure tunnels & tunnels for hydrocarbons", "Caverns & Storage" during the second.

Several intervention focused on case studies and practical aspects, with on topic detai

ITACET Foundation Training session in Foz Iguassu on Tunnels for Energy

led presentations by manufacturers' delegates. (In the order of their intervention : Robbins, Herrenknecht, Atlas

 Copco, Sandvik, Normet, BASF and Utc Mapei).

The training session also gives the opportunity to the attendees to interact with the lecturers. Q 

& A time were held twice by session. 
The numerous questions and lively discussions on hot topics reflected well the strong professional interest of the audience.

As for each organized event, the ITACET Foundation asked the audience on the perceived quality of t

he lectures and the organization of the event. The feedback we received were very good, some small details needs to be ironed out.

Congratulation to our lecturers for their outstanding work, to CBT and the ITA-CET committee for their essential contribution to the success of this training session, to the companies and their delegates for sharing their knowledge and expertise, and, last but not least, to all participants !

Pictures: (A. Pilloud for ITACET Foundation, Open Content License) T. to B. 
- L. to R. Messers Claude Bérenguier - ITACET Foundation Executive Director, Robert Galler - ITA-CET Committee Chairman and Tarcisio Celestino - chairman of the WTC 2014 during the Opening speech from Mr. Celestino, . 
- Lecture on Construction of shafts by Mrs Jinxiu (Jenny) Yan - Deputy General Manager of China Railway Southwest Research Institute Co.,Ltd.

 

 

 

   A blog of interest

 

Mr. Senthil Nath G T, current beneficiary of the ITACET Foundation Grant to follow the Specializing Masters in Tunnelling and Tunnel Boring Machines in Politecnico di Torino, opened a blog to share his experience and reference materials with other prospective students or interested engineers.

His blog “Geotech and Tunnel Engineering , Experiences & Excerpts; Ideas & Impressions; Reviews & Ramblings of a Civil Engineer “ is very lively, full of essential references and original content. It is sure to be of interest to any professional of the tunneling and underground space domain. Visit it here : http://geo-technical.blogspot.it/

By the way, it has to be noted that Senthil Nath GT is also the prize winner of the ITA Photo Contest organized at the occasion of its 40th anniversary. To know more about the contest http://www.ita-aites.org/en/ita-photo-contest-2014-winners and to see more pictures from Senthil Nath GT https://www.facebook.com/sgt.photos

 

   Next events

Coming Soon: 

Conventional Tunnelling, Thimphu, Bhutan 12-13 September 2014

Health and Safety and Logistic during Construction / Long Tunnels and urban Tunnels, Buenos-Aires, Argentina, 24-25 September 2014

General Tunnelling, Islamabad, Pakistan, 22-23 October 2014

Rock Tunnelling, Riyadh,  Saudi Arabia 16-18 November 2014

Conventional Tunnelling,  Sao Paulo, Brazil, 28-29 November 2014

Conventional Tunnelling and Auxiliary Measures, Torino, Italy, 16-17 January 2015

Other events in preparation:

 Mechanized Tunnelling, Chile, 2015

Check back on www.itacet.org for more information about these events.