The AGS NSW Chapter is excited to announce a new initiative under the ‘Numerical Methods and AI in Practice’ subcommittee: an Annual Prediction Event designed to advance the practical application of numerical methods in geotechnical engineering.
Call for Data Contributions
To make this initiative a success, we invite contributions of site investigation data and instrumentation and monitoring datasets from the geotechnical community. Your contributions will play a critical role in:
- Advancing research and knowledge-sharing within the geotechnical field.
- Encouraging innovation and collaboration among practitioners, researchers, and students.
What We Are Looking For
We are seeking:
- Site Investigation Data: Including borehole logs, laboratory test results, in-situ test data, and relevant geotechnical parameters.
- Instrumentation and Monitoring Data: Including deformation, settlement, stress-strain, pore pressure, or other relevant monitoring data from real projects.
Data from a wide range of geotechnical projects—small, medium, or large—are welcome.
An example list of an ideal data set is given at the end of this document for a fictitious project.
How Your Data Will Be Used
- All data will be anonymised and prepared for circulation among event participants.
- The data will be utilised exclusively for educational and research purposes within the framework of the Annual Prediction Event.
- A summary report, including lessons learned and insights from the event, will be shared with the data provider as well as contributors and participants.
Benefits of Contributing
By contributing your data, you will:
- Support knowledge-sharing and professional development in the geotechnical community.
- Help develop best practices for numerical modelling in geotechnical engineering.
- Receive acknowledgment for your contribution in event publications and summaries.
How to Contribute
If you have datasets that you would like to contribute or if you would like to discuss this initiative further, please contact Dr. Ali Parsa at [email protected]. Kindly include a brief description of the data you can provide and any specific conditions for its use.
Submission Deadline: 26 May 2025
We look forward to your support and participation in this exciting new initiative.
Example: Basement Excavation
- Keep it 2D – show a drawing of a wall supporting an excavation.
- Show lab test results for key units. Say where assumptions have to be made to cover for data that is unavailable.
- Give structural details of wall.
- Give ground water info.
- Give other soil parameters.
- Describe any special anchoring/shoring.
- Describe the loading cases to be used in the predictions.
- Show the format of the load-deflection result that participants are to predict.
The Annual Prediction Event aims to provide participants with a unique opportunity to simulate real-world geotechnical problems using numerical analysis. Participants will be supplied with site investigation data and tasked to predict the geotechnical behaviour of a problem. The models used, and their outputs and comparisons against actual monitoring results, will be collated to identify general and industry-wide common features, examples of what worked well and knowledge/technology gaps. This comparison, and showcase of different modelling approaches, will be a valuable learning exercise for the geotechnical community.
Warm regards,
AGS NSW Chapter
Subcommittee on Numerical Methods and AI in Practice