24th Annual William Barclay Parsons Lecture

ABOUT THE WILLIAM BARCLAY PARSONS LECTURE:

The William Barclay Parsons Lecture series was installed in 2003 with the sponsorship of Parsons Brinckerhoff. It honors the ingenuity, resolve, and engineering achievements of General William Barclay Parsons and his contributions to the advancement of the field of underground engineering and infrastructure construction in New York City. William Barclay Parsons was the Chief Engineer of the New York Rapid Transit Commission that designed and constructed the first section of the New York City Subway in 1904. The lecture series is intended to focus on the state-of-the-art topics in geotechnical engineering with a particular emphasis on tunneling and underground construction.

Registration: ASCE MET members please use promo code "ASCE" to waive registration fee. $20 fee for non-members.

LECTURE SUMMARY:

Deep space travel has long fascinated humanity and in many scenarios for such mission, having a base on the Moon seem to be an integral part of the process. Current and future goals for human activities on the Moon could be achieved by the creation of underground spaces. Locating a human habitat below the lunar surface by tunnelling would provide greater protection from hazards than a surface habitat covered in regolith while also providing a safe and more stable thermal environment than the surface.

A Lunar Tunnel Boring Machines (LTBM) would be a formidable choice for excavating required underground space in the lunar environment. This is because TBMS are self-contained relative to the forces needed for excavation, are well established technology. TBMs can operate with pressure differentials of several bars, so operating in one bar pressure differential is not an issue. They can excavate the space needed for habitats, while connecting the different subsurface structures at reasonable advance rate. They allow the operation to be in a normal working environment, atmospheric pressures and reasonable temperatures. A Lunar TBM could be used to access lava tubes which are naturally occurring features on the moon with sufficient volume to host large size bases. This presentation will discuss the requirements for tunneling on the moon and possibility of application of a LTBM for creation of underground spaces on the moon.

THE SPEAKER:

Dr. Rostami is the Hadden/Alacer Gold Endowed Chair, Professor, and Director of the Excavation Engineering and Earth Mechanics Institute (EMI) of the dept. of Mining Engineering at CSM since 2016. He has a BSc in mining engineering from Univ. of Tehran, Iran and his MSc and PhD in mining engineering in 92 and 97 from CSM, respectively. He has been a faculty at Univ. of Tehran from 1988 through 2002, a full-time consultant with major A&E companies from 2002 till 2007 when he joined the Pennsylvania State University (PSU), as Centennial Chair of Carrier Development in Mining. He has over 33 years of experience in design, management, research, and teaching in the field of mining, tunneling, and underground construction. Dr. Rostami is a registered Professional Engineering (PE) in Maryland. He has published over 120 peer reviewed journal publication and 160 conference papers and many technical reports. He is a member of SME, ASCE, ARMA, and ISEE. He is the editor in chief of the “Tunneling and Underground Space Technology” (TUST), member of editorial board of several rock mechanics and mining journals. He was also vice President of the “International Tunneling Association” or ITA (2022-25). Dr. Rostami was named the recipient 2022 UCA of SME Excellence in Education award and Pittsburgh Coal Mining Institute of America (PCMIA) 2014 Stephen McCann Memorial Educational Excellence Award. Dr. Rostami is also recipient of SME Rock Mechanics award in 2026.

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