An ITA-CET conference enabling PhD students from various European universities to network and present their research work in tunnelling was organized in Turin on 6th December 2019. The event was hosted by Politecnico di Torino in collaboration with SIG, the Italian Tunnelling Society.

The meeting was chaired by Robert Galler (ITA-CET chairman and full professor at Montanuniversität Leoben, Austria), Daniele Peila (full professor at Politecnico di Torino and a member of the ITA-CET Steering Board) and Eugenio Brusa  (full professor and chairman of the PhD School at Politecnico di Torino).

The following thesis topics were presented:

• Numerical investigation of tunnel face stability, Dimitris Georgiou, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
• Deep tunnel face stability , Thomas Pferdekaemper , ETH Zurich, Switzerland
• Monitoring of cut and cover tunnels, Flaviou Ioan Nica, Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, Romania
• Process simulation and interactive alignment planning for TBM tunnelling, Annika Jodehl, Ruhr-Universität Bochum , Germany
• The design of the soil conditioning process for EPB-TBM tunnelling, Diego Sebastiani, University Sapienza of Rome, Italy
• Two-component backfilling: a laboratory test campaign, Carmine Todaro, Politecnico di Torno, Italy
• Automized face monitoring in TBM tunnelling, Robert Wenighofer, Montanuniverstät Leoben, Austria
• Modelling high-speed railway-induced vibrations around tunnels (ground support), Harry Holmes, University of Leeds, UK
• Impact of tunnel excavation with TBM on piled foundations, Agathe Michalski, ENTPE, France

• Optmization of test methods and design of transition zones in unlined pressure tunnels, Henki Ødegaard , Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway.

   

The event was considered a great success and will hopefully be reconducted next year.