Prof. Mahdi Taiebat visited the Chair of Foundation Engineering

In the framework of an existing research collaboration within the RUB Research School PLUS VIP program and the collaborative research center SFB 837, Prof. Mahdi Taiebat visited the Chair of Foundation Engineering, Soil and Rock Mechanics from 27th of February till 3rd of March 2017. Prof. Taiebat leads the Theoretical & Applied Geomechanics (TAG) research group at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

During his stay, he gave three lectures for master and PhD candidates on "SANISAND and SANICLAY plasticity models: recent advances and applications", "Rockfill mechanics and its applications in the settlement analysis of a rockfill dam in Canada" and "A zero elastic range hypoplasticity model for sand".

Furthermore, the visit of Prof. Taiebat gave the opportunity to the PhD students to have an intensive and fruitful discussion and exchange on research topics related to: theoretical and computational geomechanics, constitutive modeling of engineering materials, physics and mechanics of granular materials, geotechnical earthquake engineering, liquefaction behavior of sand and fines content, static and dynamic soil-structure interaction.

In addition to this, Mr. Gaziz Seidalinov spent a five-month research stay at RUB to strengthen the research collaboration with Mr. Thomas Barciaga on the topic of "A bounding surface plasticity model for natural clay - formulation, implementation, calibration, validation and application". The research stay was granted by the RS PLUS PhD exchange program (four month) and the SFB 837 (one month).