Lucky me!
If you are one of my regular readers, you might recognize the words: world tunnel congress. Yes, I attended the congress in 2013 in Geneva, Switzerland and I wrote about it in several articles (link May 2013, link one and two of June 2013). I went with my former co-workers and we were making jokes about going to the San Francisco congress in 2016 since I will be living there anyway... Well, guess what? Okay, I am not living in San Francisco at the moment, but only an hour of airplane travel away and I was able to attend this great congress in April this year.
16th World Tunnel Congress, San Francisco, CA, USA
April 22 through 28, 2016
What was my purpose of going?
My purpose this time was mainly to connect with people in the field of tunneling, people that might be of help for my doctoral research - Tunnel crossing Fault zones - and to meet with people my academic adviser Dr. Scott Ashford connected me with. Secondly, I wanted learn about the subject of tunneling in earthquake prone areas.
How did I accomplish my purpose? Who did I meet and why were they important?
I actively engaged with industry groups, engineering companies, spoke with Professor Mooney from Colorado School of Mines, who will support me as an adviser in tunneling and who advertised the tunneling short course (you will hear about it in my next blog article). Further, I listened to interesting topics and obtained further connections with Japanese engineers and had follow-up emails about Japanese literature about tunneling in earthquake zones including fault lines.
What did I learn in general?
Through conversations with engineers from academia and industry, I learned that the subject of tunnel crossing fault zones is a very exciting subject of the future. And most of the tunnels constructed through fault zones are not constructed with an fault offset in mind. The main method of mitigation today is closure of the tunnel and reconstruction.
Who else did I meet?
Surprisingly, I met engineering friends from the time when I worked in Switzerland. And I met with a newly organized group of Women in Tunneling who held a meeting. I am hoping to be able to contribute to this group of female engineers.
And what am I doing now as a result of me going?
I am more and more convinced that my research subject - tunnel crossing fault zones - can answer or at least can start to answer questions many practicing engineers would like to know more about.
Wish me luck in my undertaking!
See you next time.
Stephie
