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Journal articleSheil B, Anagnostopoulos C, Buckley R, et al., 2026,
Artificial intelligence transformations in geotechnics: progress, challenges and future enablers
, Computers and Geotechnics, Vol: 189, ISSN: 0266-352XOur reliance on the underground space to deliver critical civil engineering infrastructure is growing: to accommodate utility and transport infrastructure in urban environments, to provide innovative housing and commercial solutions, and to support proliferating renewable energy infrastructure, particularly offshore. Artificial intelligence (AI) is arguably the most promising enabler to transform geotechnical engineering by extracting knowledge from data to achieve step-change increases in efficiency, sustainability, reliability and safety. This paper seeks to develop a shared understanding of the state of the art of AI in geotechnics and to explore future developments. By way of example, specific popular use cases in geotechnics are considered to highlight current progress in AI applications including intelligent site investigation, predictive modelling for soil behaviour, and optimisation of design and construction processes. The paper then addresses key research challenges, such as data scarcity and interpretability, and discusses the opportunities that lie ahead in the integration of AI with geotechnical engineering. Finally, priority technological enablers are identified for future transformations.
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Journal articleTantivangphaisal P, Taborda D, Kontoe S, et al., 2025,
Numerical modelling of the long-term cyclic response of laterally loaded piles driven in sands using the high-cycle accumulation framework
, Geotechnique: international journal of soil mechanics, Vol: 75, Pages: 1507-1523, ISSN: 0016-8505The High-Cycle Accumulation framework is modified and coupled with a practice-oriented cyclic sand constitutive model and implemented in a geotechnical finite elementsoftware to test the approach’s ability to predict the outcomes of monotonic and cyclic lateral loading field tests performed in Dunkirk, France, under the Pile-Soil Analysis (PISA) Joint Industry Project. A consistent and rational calibration procedure using only site-specific in-situ investigation and laboratory tests is presented and a single set of calibrated parameters is shown to reproduce Dunkirk sand’s response in monotonic, drained cyclic and undrained cyclic triaxial element tests up to 10,000 cycles, covering awide range of densities and stress conditions. The finite element analyses are shown to match well the monotonic lateral loading responses of fully instrumented 2m and 0.76m diameter open steel driven test piles and the latter’s cyclic lateral response up to 30,000 cycles. New insights into the evolution of the ground state under long-term lateral cyclic loading are gained to inform future research into practical site-specific methods for cyclic loading design over the full lifespan of piled foundations.
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Journal articleStewart M, Ruiz Lopez A, Tsiampousi A, 2025,
Three-dimensional interaction of twin tunnels numerical analysis of the Waterloo International Terminal case study
, Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, Vol: 151, ISSN: 0733-9410Being able to predict with precision and certainty how existing tunnels respond to new tunnelling works in urban areas is vital for the safety of the existing tunnels and for minimising the cost and environmental impact of the new tunnels. The three-dimensional interaction of tunnels in stiff, overconsolidated clays has mainly been restricted to field studies, with only a few generic numerical studies. Nonetheless, a large part of underground tunnel construction has happened and continues to occur in overconsolidated clays. The paper bridges this gap by using the case study of Waterloo International Terminal, where two new tunnels were excavated beneath two 70 year-old tunnels, to validate a numerical model. The validated numerical results provide new, valuable insights into the differences and similarities of the response of the existing tunnels depending on their typology (running or station tunnels) and on the time after the excavation of the new tunnels. Furthermore, they reveal the significance of the stiffness reduction factors that need to be applied to account for the segmental nature of the tunnel linings, highlighting the need for further research into the operational value of the tunnel stiffness.
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Journal articleMA S, Kontoe S, Taborda D, 2025,
Quantifying the variation of hydraulic conductivity during seismic liquefaction
, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, Vol: 197, ISSN: 0267-7261Hydraulic conductivity plays a significant role in the evolution of liquefaction phenomena induced by seismic loading, influencing the pore water pressure buildup and dissipation, as well as the associated settlement during and after liquefaction. Experimental evidence indicates that hydraulic conductivity varies significantly during and after seismic excitation. However, most previous studies have focused on experimentally capturing soil hydraulic conductivity variations during the post-shaking phase, primarily based on the results at the stage of excess pore water pressure dissipation and consolidation of sand particles after liquefaction. This paper aims to quantify the variation of hydraulic conductivity during liquefaction, covering both the co-seismic and post-shaking phases. Adopting a fully coupled solid-fluid formulation (u–p), a new back-analysis methodology is introduced which allows the direct estimation of the hydraulic conductivity of a soil deposit during liquefaction based on centrifuge data or field measurements. Data from eight well-documented free-field dynamic centrifuge tests are then analysed, revealing key characteristics of the variation of hydraulic conductivity during liquefaction. The results show that hydraulic conductivity increases rapidly at the onset of seismic shaking but gradually decreases despite high pore pressures persisting. The depicted trends are explained using the Kozeny-Carman equation, which highlights the combined effects of seismic shaking-induced agitation, liquefaction, and solidification on soil hydraulic conductivity during the co-seismic and post-shaking phases.
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Journal articlePedro AMG, Taborda D, Repsold LM, et al., 2025,
The influence of the construction methodology on the modelled response of shafts
, Soils and Rocks, Vol: 48, Pages: 1-15, ISSN: 1980-9743Shaft excavation is essential in modern cities, allowing for quick and direct access to the underground, where most transportation networks and utilities are being installed to reduce surface congestion. Selecting the appropriate construction methodology is critical to minimize ground movements, while ensuring structural stability and construction efficiency. This study assesses the performance of three typical construction methodologies – Excavation Before Support (EBS), Support Before Excavation (SBE) and Dual-Lined Shafts (DLS) – through a comprehensive numerical study. The validation of the adopted modelling approach for each methodology is performed by simulating three case studies in close proximity to each other. Several aspects of numerical modelling are discussed, such as the simulation of the hardening behavior of the sprayed concrete, the modelling the wall installation and their stiffness anisotropy. For each methodology, the influence of key variables is assessed through parametric studies, highlighting the importance of the excavation step height, the lining thickness and the embedded length of the wall. A final study, where all methodologies are compared for the same ground conditions, is carried out for two shaft diameters. Results indicate that SBE produces the smallest ground movements but induces the highest lining forces. In contrast, EBS originates higher ground movements due to significant soil decompression but smaller lining forces. DLS methodology exhibits an intermediate behavior, although more similar to that observed in EBS. These findings emphasize the importance of selecting an adequate shaft construction methodology and provide valuable information regarding the appropriate numerical simulation of each technique.
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Conference paperImansyah MR, Taborda D, Hau KW, et al., 2025,
Numerical investigation of offshore foundation on liquefiable sands
, 20th International Conference: The Jack-up PlatformThis study investigates the seismic response of shallow foundations resting on liquefiable sand deposits, with theaim of providing insights into the expected behaviour of Wind Turbine Installation Vessels (WTIV) when subjected to earthquake loading. A detailed calibration strategy based on commonly available ground information is outlined for Nevada sand, with a detailed characterisation of the model performance being undertaken in termsof CSR, stiffness degradation, and damping ratio curves. Subsequent validation process is also provided bysimulating centrifuge experiments of footings resting on liquefiable deposits. Lastly, three-dimensional finiteelement analyses of a WTIV are performed employing the calibrated UBC3D-PLM parameters. The impact of soilliquefaction on the response of the WTIV is investigated, with particular emphasis given to the additionalsettlements caused by the seismic loading.
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Journal articleMaddah Sadatieh MS, Tsiampousi A, Paschalis A, 2025,
Numerical study of the effect of soil-plant-atmosphere interaction under future climate projections and different vegetation covers
, Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment, Vol: 43, ISSN: 2352-3808Soil-plant-atmosphere interaction (SPAI) plays a significant role on the safety and serviceably of geotechnical infrastructure. The mechanical and hydraulic soil behaviour varies with the soil water content and pore water pressures (PWP), which are in turn affected by vegetation and weather conditions. Focusing on the hydraulic reinforcement that extraction of water through the plant roots offers, this study couples advances in ecohydrological modelling with advances in geotechnical modelling, overcoming previous crude assumptions around the application of climatic effects on the geotechnical analysis. A methodology for incorporating realistic ecohydrological effects in the geotechnical analysis is developed and validated, and applied in the case study of a cut slope in Newbury, UK, for which field monitoring data is available, to demonstrate its successful applicability in boundary value problems. The results demonstrate the positive effect of vegetation on the infrastructure by increasing the Factor of Safety. Finally, the effect of climate change and changes in slope vegetation cover are investigated. The analysis results demonstrate that slope behaviour depends on complex interactions between the climate and the soil hydraulic properties and cannot be solely anticipated based on climate data, but suctions and changes in suction need necessarily to be considered.
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Journal articleTaborda D, Pedro A, Xia H, et al., 2025,
A methodology for improved predictions of surface ground movements around shafts
, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Geotechnical Engineering, Vol: 178, Pages: 479-493, ISSN: 1353-2618Shafts are typically employed in urban environments to provide access or ventilation to underground structures such as stations, railways or highways. The choice of design is determined, among other things, by the need to control settlements at the surface, often estimated during early design stages using empirical expressions. These have been shown to have limited accuracy, failing to account appropriately for the effect of shaft diameter on the ground movements associated with shaft excavation. This paper reviews empirical expressions available in the literature in the context of a large database of settlements induced by shaft excavation in London. A comprehensive set of detailed numerical analyses is performed to enable the development of a new set of expressions capable of predicting accurately the computed vertical and horizontal ground movements at the surface. The new expressions are shown to provide better predictions of the observed field data than predictive expressions available in the literature, establishing a new benchmark against which future proposals can be assessed.
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Journal articleSanchez Fernandez J, Ruiz Lopez A, Taborda D, 2025,
A novel machine learning-based approach to thermal integrity profiling of concrete pile foundations
, Data-Centric Engineering, ISSN: 2632-6736Thermal Integrity Profiling (TIP) is a non-destructive testing technique which takes advantage of the concrete heat of hydration (HoH) to detect inclusions during the casting process. This method is becoming more popular due to its ease of application, as it can be used to predict defects in most concrete foundation structures requiring only the monitoring of temperatures. Despite its advantages, challenges remain with regard to data interpretation and analysis, as temperature is only known at discrete points within a given cross-section. This study introduces a novel method for the interpretation of TIP readings using neural networks. Training data is obtained through numerical FE simulation spanning an extensive range of soil, concrete and geometrical parameters. The developed algorithm first classifies concrete piles, establishing the presence or absence of defects. This is followed by a regression algorithm that predicts the defect size and its location within the cross-section. Additionally, the regression model provides reliable estimates for the reinforcement cage misalignment and concrete hydration parameters. To make these predictions, the proposed methodology only requires temperature data in the form standard in TIP, and so it can be seamlessly incorporated within the TIP workflows. This work demonstrates the applicability and robustness of machine learning algorithms in enhancing non-destructive TIP testing of concrete foundations, thereby improving the safety and efficiency of civil engineering projects.
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Conference paperProvost A, Sanchez Fernandez J, Sapin P, et al., 2025,
An approach for including heat pump performance in the design of thermo-active piles
, 3rd International Conference on Energy Geotechnics, Publisher: ISSMGEThe focus on sustainable built environment has grown with the drive for net-zero. The use of pile foundations and other geotechnical structures as ground heat exchangers (GHEs) is key to unlocking the economic viability of ground-source energy systems (GSESs) in dense urban areas. However, current design procedures characterise the performance of GHEs under a given temperature or heat flux, which consider the heat exchanger in isolation from the rest of the GSES. This study proposes a new method to assess the thermal performance of GHEs based on the electricity consumption of the heat pump byintroducing explicitly a model describing its performance based on operating temperatures. This general method is applied to a thermo-active pile, providing insights into the impact of pile diameter and length
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Conference paperSanchez Fernandez J, Provost A, Ruiz Lopez A, et al., 2025,
A data-driven approach to predicting the long-term thermal performance of thermo-active piles
, 3rd International Conference on Energy GeotechnicsThe analysis and optimisation of large ground source energy systems involving the use of thermo-active piles requires the ability to predict the thermal performance of these geothermal structures using limited computational resources, as many different configurations need to be tested. Current design methods are either based on empirical expressions, the accuracy of which is necessarily limited, or on thermo-hydraulic modelling which is computationally expensive and hence of difficult integration with optimisation procedures. In this paper, a surrogate model of a single thermo-active pile is established by running multiple thermo-hydraulic finite element analyses using different combinations of thermal ground properties, pipe arrangement, fluid temperature, pile length and pile diameter determined using a Latin hypercube sampling approach. The database of results is then used to train an artificial neural network (ANN), which is shown to produce accurate predictions of the thermal performance of a thermo-active pile given its characteristics and those of the surrounding ground. Given the low computational cost of surrogate models, this approach enables the design optimisation of large systems with greater confidence than previously possible using empirical relationships and a fraction of the resources required by thermo-hydraulic finite element models.
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Conference paperBeh M, Liu R, Taborda D, et al., 2025,
Numerical Modelling of Ground Improvement Thermal Parameters for Long-Term Energy Pile Performance
, 3rd International Conference on Energy Geotechnics -
Conference paperTantivangphaisal P, Taborda D, Kontoe S, et al., 2025,
Multi-directional and combined force-moment limit state envelopes for the design of offshore monopile founded in sands
, 5th International Symposium on Frontiers in Offshore Geotechnics (ISFOG2025), Publisher: International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Pages: 1423-1428The geotechnical design of laterally loaded offshore wind turbine monopile foundations usually has two main requirements: 1) design load cases must not exceed the total lateral pile resistance calculated with material partialfactors and 2) a limit on pile head deformation and rotation under critical load cases. When resolving and translating load combinations into geotechnical design loads on the foundation, the effect of loads on the turbine structure acting in multiple directions at varying moment arms is often neglected. For ULS design, a maximum load case prescribed to act at a single moment arm is typically assumed as the most onerous static load case. This is done without consideration of the fact that the pile capacity is dependent on the assumed lever arm and without full definition of the limit state envelope. Three-dimensionalfinite element analyses are well placed to evaluate limit state envelopes so that combinations of load magnitudes, directions and moment arms can be jointly considered. This paper presents a design workflow using a parametric numerical study on a typical monopile founded in sands of different densities to jointly consider these factors. The evaluated response envelopes are proposed as a more rigorous evaluation of geotechnical design limit states and can be adopted in conjunction with a probabilistic treatment of magnitude, height and direction of environmental loads.
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Conference paperTantivangphaisal P, Ortiz Wall F, Taborda D, et al., 2025,
GEOLAB blind prediction contest: winning methods for predicting pile behaviour under monotonic and cyclic lateral loading
, 5th International Symposium on Frontiers in Offshore Geotechnics (ISFOG2025), Publisher: International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Pages: 1533-1538Many geotechnical structures rely on piles or pile groups for foundation, both onshore and offshore. Predicting their load-deformation behaviour remains a significant challenge, particularly for cyclically loaded piles. The rapid expansion of offshore wind energy necessitates accurate predictions of pile behaviour under complex loading conditions induced by metocean factors, including severe cyclic lateral loading. Examples of such piles in offshore conditions include monopile foundations and anchor piles for floating offshore wind turbines. To assess the state of the art and current practices, an international benchmarking exercise was conducted within the framework of the GEOLAB project.This exercise invited both practicing engineers and researchers to participate in a contest by submitting their predictions on the outcomes of two large-scale physical model tests on a laterally loaded pile. In the first test, a monotonically increasing lateral load was applied until a lateral displacement of up to 20% of the pile diameter was achieved. In the second test, a total of 13,000 sinusoidal lateral loading cycles were applied, divided into two packages with different mean values and amplitudes. This paper describes the methods followed by the winning team that showed the best overall performance in both monotonic and cyclic loading.
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Journal articleTantivangphaisal P, Taborda D, Kontoe S, 2025,
Implementation of a practical sand constitutive model coupled with the high cycle accumulation framework in PLAXIS
, MethodsX, Vol: 14, ISSN: 2215-0161A modification of the high-cycle accumulation (HCA) framework coupled with a practical constitutive model for sands and its numerical implementation as a user-defined soil model in PLAXIS is presented. The implemented model is compared against data from the original high-cyclic tests in Karlsruhe fine sand and more recent laboratory tests in Dunkirk sand. A reference 15 MW offshore wind turbine monopile foundation subject to lateral cyclic wave loading is used in an engineering design scenario at three different load levels to verify the current numerical implementation.Details include:• Modifications made to the HCA framework to couple it with a practical sand constitutive model,• Implementation of an efficient workflow to switch between low and high cycle constitutive equations in PLAXIS, and• Verification of the implementation at single element and boundary value problem scales.
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