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Preface

This is the 68th offering of the University of Minnesota Annual Geotechnical Engineering Conference, which was started in 1953, largely through the efforts of Miles Kersten, University of Minnesota; Charles Britzius, Twin City Testing; C.K. Preus, Minnesota Highway Department; and Wilfred Darling, Corps of Engineers. The speakers at the 1st conference included Kersten, Britzius, and Preus, as well as Herbert Wright, University of Minnesota; Rockwell Smith, Association of American Railroads; and Ralph Peck, University of Illinois. In 1979, at the 27th conference, the Kersten Lecture was established and George Sowers, Georgia Institute of Technology, presented the first lecture.

The tradition continues through the Planning Committee, whose members represent the contracting industry, government agencies, consulting engineers, and the University, with a program offering technical information and discussion on recent projects for the geoengineering community. Topics at the 68th conference cover energy geotechnology, numerical modeling in geomechanics, lessons learned from failures, waste on-site disposal, and case histories. The conference provides a forum to interact with peers, meet specialty contractors, and hear researchers and practitioners discuss theory and application of geomechanics.

This volume is one of seven containing the full collection of papers presented at Geo-Congress 2020, numbering well of 400 in total. Each of the seven volumes were reviewed in accordance with ASCE GSP standards. Each paper was subjected to technical review by two or more independent peer reviewers, and publication required concurrence by at least two peer reviewers. These publications and the conference itself would not have been possible without the diligent effort of the individuals recognized in the acknowledgements.