Geotechnics and data transfer – AGS 4.1.1 AU1.2 roll out

Stephen Durham, Phil Wade, Tim Swavley and Sven Thorin

In 2019 The Australian Geomechanics Society (AGS), formed a working group tasked with developing an Australian localisation of the UK developed AGS 4.1 data transfer format (Association of Geotechnical & Geo-environmental Specialists (AGS-UK)). The presentation will cover the origins of the format and the industry’s need for a ‘software and organisation agnostic’ file format for site investigation and laboratory data, which more diversely appropriates the first Australian localisation by TfNSW (AGS 3.1 RTA .1.1). With the evolution of the UK format to include the definition of ‘data types’ and better support for laboratory testing in versions 4 and 4.1 and the fact that UK version of AGS 3.1 had support discontinued there was a clear need to update the format for Australia.

With the introduction of AGS 4.1.1 AU1.2 the speakers will explain why such a localisation was required. The working group was tasked with preparing something that could be used nationally, had at least partial backwards compatibility (or at least comparable fields with the previous RTA version), support for component soil and rock descriptions as prescribed in AS 1726 which was not readily supported in the UK GEOL group and add headings and groups to cover laboratory tests used in Australia, such as AS1141, AS1289, AS 4133, AS 5101, ASTM, etc. There will be significant focus on the extended Aus GEOL and how it should be used.

The presentation will be followed by a 15 minute Q&A.

About the speakers

Stephen Durham National Executive, Geotechnical Laboratories, WSP

Stephen is currently the National Executive of Geotechnical Laboratories and is a technical assessor for NATA (National Association of Testing Authorities) and formerly the authorised NATA representative for Golder Associates. He is also responsible for developing and maintaining WSP geotechnical laboratory quality systems and has experience with geotechnical and geo-environmental data handling and development of specialist software including the WSP global Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS). Stephen is also a Principal Geotechnical Engineer with over 25 years’ experience in Managing geotechnical and geo-environmental site investigation projects, reporting, preparing presentations and reports for expert witness work.  Stephen’s special interest is in slope stability analysis, soft ground engineering and remedial design. His principal areas of expertise are engineering geology; geotechnical engineering; soil engineering; water engineering; rock engineering and numerical modelling. 

Phil Wade Managing Director, Datgel

Phil Wade is the founder and managing director of Datgel. He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and master’s degree in geotechnical engineering. He worked in geotechnical site investigations and consulting initially, then for majority of his career has developed and marketed geotechnical data software, customised gINT and conducted scores of gINT and Datgel software training courses. Phil is an expert gINT and gINT Rules API developer, and an experienced VB.NET/C#/Database developer and Windows/MS Azure administrator. He currently sits on the AGS UK Data Management Working Group, and the AGS 4.1 Australia committee. Phil was the primary author of AGS 3.1 RTA 1.1 for NSW Australia and contributed to developing AGS 3.1 (SG) for Singapore.

Tim Swavley Senior Geotechnical Engineer, Macquaire Geotechnical

Tim has nearly 15 years’ of geotechnical consulting experience including managing and performing geotechnical site investigation works for projects of varying sizes throughout Australia and internationally.  In his current role with Macquarie Geotechnical Tim governs the company’s geotechnical data generation practices including design, training, and supervision of data recording practices to suit client specific, AS 1726, and AGS4AU requirements, as well as collaborating with end users to identify and implement new digital engineering opportunities enabled by the data we produce.

Sven Thorin

Sven is a geotechnical engineer with 15 years experience in ground data collection, management and interpretation in the UK, Africa, central Asia and Australia. He has spent the last ten years in Sydney on the delivery of large infrastructure projects. Until recently, Sven was Geotechnical Manager for Sydney Metro, then Principal’s Representative on site investigation and survey contracts across all Sydney Metro projects, in parallel with his role as Project Manager – The Bays & Tunnels for the Sydney Metro West – Eastern Tunnelling Package. Sven is passionate about extracting value from ground data and has published numerous papers on the topic. His contributions to the industry include developing Sydney Metro specifications on construction & ground data, making unprecedented amounts of ground data publicly available on Minview, and contributing to this AGS4.1 AU working group.

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