Topics: GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING DESIGN APPROACH – ITS REALIGNMENT INTO THE 4th INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 

Abstract

The First Industrial Revolution in 1784 was the mechanization of industry via water and steam, and the Second Industrial Revolution in 1870 initiate the development of machine tools, resulting in large-scale industrial manufacturing. While the Third Industrial Revolution, which began in the 1969, was the Digital Revolution and is still ongoing and has paved the way for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which was enabled largely by an increase in processor power and an increased rate of technological development that has been enabled by more powerful computing. The “fourth industrial revolution” – or “Industry 4.0” – is a game-changer. It blends physical and information systems, making use of the huge quantities of data we all generate. And ever-increasing computational power is enabling us to make sense of this data, creating rich opportunities for innovation. However, not all innovation is invention as it can be seen in Geotechnical Engineering discipline. Soils are human in nature. Uncertainties, history, colours and background dominates the behaviour of the soil. Understanding its behaviour is a complicated task. Prediction on its behaviour is the best solution offer so far without any assurance on its performance. Terzaghi(1936) once said , “soils are made from natures and not by man, and the product of natures are always complex”. Many uncertainties involves in predicting the behaviour of soils. From extracting, handling and testing which bound to accumulate errors and disturbance to the sample, will cause a deviations from its actual behaviours. Geotechnical Engineering fields are related with daily life. Slopes, foundations, excavations, flood barrier, anchoring to name a few are geotechnical construction that needs high safety design for the comfort of the public. Design base from static equilibrium, dynamic equilibrium no longer rules it approach in predicting the soil behaviours. The design and constructions has been improvised in lieu to the lesson learn from the previous failure. This combination with increase in knowledge and development of new design techniques through computation and simulation such as Artificial Neural Network principally has reduce the failure in constructions. This lecture will focus on the realignment of Geotechnical Engineering discipline into the era of Industrial Revolution 4.0 for the benefit of newbies engineers future improvement in design.

Ir. DR. Hj.Ramli bin Hj. Nazir is a Professor in Geotechnical Engineering at Geotechnical and Transportation Department, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia since 1989. He served as Assistant Engineer in Public Works Department Malaysia for four years. Holds a B. Civil Eng. from UTM and PhD from the University of Liverpool specialized in Geotechnical Engineering. He has more than 25 years' experience in the field of Geotechnical Engineering, especially Foundations, Ground Improvement and Geotechnical Forensics Engineering and have wrote more than 100 technical papers and Journals related to his field of expertise. In addition as a Lecturer in Geotechnical Engineering, he is also a Professional Engineer who have numerous experience as a Design Engineer, Design Checker and Geotechnical Technical Advisor to various government and private agencies and also involved in many Civil Forensic works including Structural and Infrastructures in Malaysia. In addition to engineering education and consultation activities, he is a Member of the Technical Committee on Eurocode 7 Malaysian Annex which responsible for regulating the use of Eurocode 7 according to local needs, Research Committee Members for Construction  and Industrial Development Board of Malaysia, and Public Work Department Malaysia. He also provide an expertise support for Standards and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia (SIRIM) and Public Work Department (JKR), in the design specification work for specialized work such as Soil Anchor and Load Testing. He is also a member of National Slope Failure Enquiry Commissioner. He is also an invited Geotechnical speaker for training and workshops to government and private technical agencies such as JKR, PETRONAS, SHELL, Malaysia Productivity Corporation and many more. Currently Prof. Ramli is a Deputy Director for Tropical Geoengineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.