16TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF IACMAG 2022 - INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTER METHODS AND ADVANCES IN GEOMECHANICS
From August 30th to September 2nd, 2022, Politecnico di Torino will host the 16th International Conference of the International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics, whose general theme is 'Challenges and Innovations in Geomechanics'. Initially scheduled for 2020, due to the pandemic emergency, the event was postponed first to May 2021 and, later, to 2022. With the last postponement, the date thus coincides with the 50-year anniversary since the first IACMAG conference, held in the United States in 1972.
Turin won the event in Wuhan, venue of the last edition, in 2017, after a head-to-head with the candidacy of the city of Graz and its technical university.
The event aims to provide an updated picture of the broad field of computational geomechanics, and is jointly organized by Politecnico di Torino (DISEG, Department of Structural, Building and Geotechnical Engineering), University of Grenoble and Politecnico di Milano, to symbolize the importance of national and international cooperation.
The conference will be held at Politecnico di Torino, while the other two locations will host pre-conference courses dedicated to multiscale modeling of geomaterials (on August 29th and 30th at the 3SR laboratory on the Grenoble campus) and to multi-physical processes in geomechanics (on August 30th at Politecnico di Milano). A further pre-conference course is planned at the Valentino Castle. Organized with InfraTo, it will be devoted to the design of Turin Metro Line 2 which will see, a unique project in the world, the thermal activation of all the linings of the 10 km-long tunnels and of the 13 stations, also using the Enertun technology, patented by the Politecnico. This technology will make it possible to obtain geothermal energy for heating and cooling of the line stations, contributing significantly to the reduction of the carbon footprint of the work.
More than 300 participants from all over the world are expected, with some geographic areas still penalized by the restrictions due to the pandemic.
The conference will include plenary lectures, parallel sessions and some social events that will allow participants to get to know and appreciate the host territory. An event within the event is the Innovation Hub, moderated by Alice Rosiello of the Politecnico Tech Transfer, which will allow innovative start-ups and patent holders to present short pitches and meet the conference attendees directly. There are many innovations in the geomechanics sector and the conference will try to highlight and enhance them. They concern the more traditional aspects of calculation techniques to support the project of geotechnical works or land protection measures, of the works and the environment monitoring techniques, of the effect of climate change up to encroaching on the energy, artificial intelligence and chemistry fields.
On Saturday there will be technical visits to the construction site of the west extension of Turin Metro Line 1 and to the underground car park of the Politecnico di Torino which, with its 172 energy diaphragm walls, till the construction of Turin Metro Line 2, will be the first application in Italy of that technology in size.
The conference will be held in English.
Conference website with detailed information: www.iacmag2022.org
Event program: https://www.symposium.it/files/eventi/178/programma-esteso-231.pdf)