Invited Speakers

 

Associate Professor Nikos Gerolymos

National Technical University, Athens, Greece

Nikos Gerolymos is an Associate Professor in the School of Civil Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens. He teaches and conducts research in the area of Soil Mechanics, Computational Geotechnics, Soil-Structure Interaction and Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering. In his career, Prof Gerolymos has co-authored over than 170 scientific publications delivered invited lectures and general reports in international and national conferences. He has served as a reviewer of scientific articles for more than 60 international journals, many international / national conferences and research proposals, and as an editorial board member of 4 peer-reviewed scientific journals. He has worked as a main researcher in 25 research projects in Greece and the EU and contributed to the supervision of 10 PhD dissertations and about 70 Master and Diploma theses. Maintaining a strong link with the industry, he has over than 25 years of professional experience in consultancy services for major public engineering projects (energy, transportation and infrastructure) in Greece and worldwide. His methodology regarding the seismic analysis of caisson foundations has been applied in the design of several megabridges (e.g., the highway channel across the Qiongzhou Strait in China and the Dhubri–Phulbari bridge in Assam, India), while his constitutive soil model for sand behaviour and liquefaction-related deformation, designated as Ta-Ger (Tasiopoulou and Gerolymos, 2016), has been widely recognized among the most versatile models for 3D cyclic loading analysis at very large number of cycles and has been extensively used in the design of major projects including bridges, LNG tanks, offshore wind farms and port facilities. His teaching work received the highest grade in the evaluation of courses and tutors by the students of the Civil Engineering School during the 2014-2015 academic year. He awarded the distinction of Outstanding Reviewer for “Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineer” in the same year. He is a member of the National Standardization Body of Greece (ELOT) since 2019.

 

Speech title "Comparative Study between Two- and Three-Dimensional Analyses of a Deep Excavation"

Abstract—The subsoil stratigraphy, the excavation geometry, and the temporary supporting system are significant factors that affect the design and construction of a deep excavation. This paper presents the findings of a numerical simulation of an anchored pile-supported 36m deep excavation with a length to width ratio of L/B=2.2. The significance of 3D geometry and excavation stages in the out of plane direction on the pile wall’s performance is highlighted. The analysis is carried out with PLAXIS FE code and the effective stress approach. The following critical parameters are used for the results’ comparison: (a) wall lateral displacement, (b) ground settlement, and (c) internal structural forces. The impact of wall structural anisotropy and construction sequence on the soil-structure system's performance is also investigated. The unrealistic 2D boundary conditions considerably overestimate results in terms of both displacements and stresses of the wall, which may lead to an overconservative design.