Keynote Lecture by Prof. Ziegler
at EuroGeo7 in Warsaw 

From September 4th to 7th, 2022, the European geosynthetics conference EuroGEo7 took place in Warsaw in presence. It was organized and hosted by the Polish Chapter of the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS). With around 800 participants, it exceeded the expectations of the organizers, who had to postpone the conference originally planned for 2020 several times due to the pandemic. 

On the first conference day, several keynote lectures were on the agenda. Prof. Ziegler had the honor of being the first to deliver the L.M.N.S Lecture. The four letters L.M.N.S represent the initiators (E. Leflaive, A. McGown, J.D. Nieuwenhuis and M. Sotton) of the first International Geosynthetics Conference in Paris in 1977, which marked the beginning of the triumphant and worldwide spread of geosynthetics. 

In his highly acclaimed lecture, Prof. Ziegler addressed the interaction mechanisms between geosynthetics and soil. In addition to theoretical considerations on the subject, he also presented experiments with transparent soil based on the research of his co-author Jan Derksen of RWTH Aachen University. In these experiments, the soil is replaced by a glass granulate that behaves similarly in terms of soil mechanics and whose pore spaces are filled with a special oil that has the same refractive index as the granulate. As a result, the granulate filling becomes transparent and the movement of the inserted geosynthetic can be followed and evaluated photographically in a non-contact manner (see photo). The aim is to develop a realistic interface element for numerical calculations. 

Further information on the lecture and the topic can be found in the conference proceedings as well as in: 

DERKSEN, J., FUENTES, R. & ZIEGLER, M. 2022a. Geogrid-soil interaction: experimental analysis of factors influencing load transfer. Geosynthetics International, 1-22. 

DERKSEN, J., ZIEGLER, M. & FUENTES, R. 2021. geogrid-soil interaction: a new conceptual model and testing apparatus. Geotextiles and Geomembranes, 49, 1393-1406.