Escaping the Golden Cage: Learning to Practise the Art of Observational Geotechnical Engineering

John Simmons

2014 AGS Practitioner Award Distinguished Lecture.

The observational method is a respected pillar of geotechnical practice, but it appears in many guises and its application is not always clearly understood or appreciated. At its heart is the engineer’s dilemma of getting something to work safely and efficiently in the face of uncertainties. This presentation traces a professional career that started with a passion for geology, dams, and bridges, developed into a fascination for slope stability and periglacial landforms, was seconded into the black arts of slope stability and waste management in coal mining, and was then driven back to research to seek better answers to some fundamental mining slope stability problems. The complex inter-relationships among assumptions, analyses, observations, and outcomes are described for some case histories ranging from pile foundations to slope instability and material characterisation tests. In order to understand and achieve well engineered outcomes, observational skill and design detailing is promoted as the key to escaping the golden cage of modelling and analysis.

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