Dr. Pawel Nawrocki of the Petroleum Engineering Program, member of the international Advisory Committee and invited speaker at IACMAG Conference in India
The 12th conference of the International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics (IACMAG) was held in Goa, India, from October 1-6, 2008. The theme for the Conference has been chosen as “Geomechanics in the Emerging Social & Technological Age” and the conference has received an overwhelming response and attracted about 1200 abstracts from 47 countries with representation from all the continents. Each paper was peer reviewed by at least two reviewers and in many cases the paper selection was based on the comments of three reviewers. About 600 papers were finally accepted for presentation either in Oral or Poster & Interactive format (LCD presentation). In addition, 12 keynote lectures plus several invited papers were presented during the course of this conference.
As a member of the International Advisory Committee I was involved in organizing this meeting from the very beginning (2005), co-chaired one session, and presented invited theme paper on borehole failure modes in front of about 300 attendees during the opening session of the Conference.
The International Association for Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics was incorporated as a non-profit organization in the State of Arizona, USA, in 1987/1988 with the Secretariat at the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, University of Arizona, Tucson. Currently IACMAG organizes its conferences about every three years. A very high technical content and quality are the main attributes these conferences are known for and each time these conferences have been attended by about 350 participants from academic, practicing and government organizations from various countries. Previous conferences were held in the United States, Germany, Canada, Japan, Austria, Australia and China. The most recent before Goa, 11th IACMAG, was held in Turin, Italy, in June 2005, where participants from about 40 countries attended.
The history of IACMAG started in 1972 with the first conference on Applications of the Finite Element Method in Geotechnical Engineering held in Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA. The International Committee for Numerical Methods in Geomechanics was established in July 1976 after the Second International Conference on Numerical Methods in Geomechanics, in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. Subsequently, in view of vigorous international activities and interest, IACMAG was founded at the time of the sixth conference, in Innsbruck, Austria, 1988. The conference, sponsored by IACMAG, was then named the International Conference on Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics. Hence, the term "IACMAG Conference" was used from seventh conference, Cairns, Australia. Dr. Chandra Desai of the University of Arizona is the current president of IACMAG.
Incidentally, IACMAG also acts as the co-sponsor of the International Journal of Geomechanics published by The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
For more details on IACMAG please visit http://www.iacmag.org
Pawel Nawrocki, October 09, 2008.
