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First Southern African Geotechnical Conference May 2016

Four members of ARQ’s geotechnical team attended the First Southern African Geotechnical Conference at Sun City on 4-6 May 2016. The conference was well supported by the Southern African geotechnical community with over 200 delegates attending and 53 papers presented.

Alan Parrock, Marie Basson, Louis du Plessis and Katy O’Brien thoroughly enjoyed the many technical presentations and the general programme set within the beautiful Pilanesberg surroundings.  The proceedings kicked off with a meet and greet at the Cabanas Hotel on the Wednesday evening. On Thursday morning Katy and Alan presented their paper on the Variations in Cohesion and Friction Angle with Strain and Their Significance in Design Practice. Read the paper on our Publications Web Page under NEWS.

 That evening the official conference dinner was attended, with comedian Riaad Moosa setting a jovial mood.

The highlight of the conference was catching up with old friends and colleagues as well as making new acquaintances. It was good to meet with the geotechnical contractors and the manufacturers and suppliers of specialist construction materials and equipment. Most of them are well-known to ARQ, but there were some new faces and products.

As always it also provided us with the opportunity to gauge the present state of the geotechnical engineering market, i.e. how busy other consultants and contractors are, what type and the locality of projects they’re working on, what type of new technologies they’re using etc. We’re glad to report, it appears that most consultants are fairly busy, which is an indication that infrastructure projects are in progress and the industry in South Africa is still healthy and growing.