ASCE Metropolitan Section Technical Lecture presented by Langan

ABOUT LANGAN LECTURE:

The Langan Lecture was established with the ASCE Metropolitan Section Geotechnical Group in 2014 to promote developments and advances in the fields of geotechnical and foundation engineering and to explore technologies developed within our industry to meet the urban geotechnical, foundation, and construction challenges.

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

LECTURE SUMMARY

In this lecture we explore the past, present and future potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in Geotechnical Engineering. The presentation will provide a brief history and context of AI and its uses in Civil Engineering in general and Geotechnical Engineering in particular. The presentation will then track developments over the past three decades including the use of Artificial Neural Networks for developing correlations in lieu of conventional regression analysis, as well as the use of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to represent material constitutive behavior. The lecture will also explore the role of AI in inverse analysis and discovering material behavior. Lastly the presentation will delve into the world of Large Language Models and Generative AI application in Geotechnical Engineering with several illustrative examples.

THE SPEAKER:

Professor Youssef Hashash holds a B.S., an M.S. and a Ph.D. (1992) in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He began his career with the PB/MK TEAM in Dallas on the Superconducting Super Collider Project and then Parsons Brinckerhoff in San Francisco working on underground construction projects in the U.S. and Canada including the Boston Central Artery/Tunnel project. He is a licensed professional engineer in California.

Professor Hashash joined the faculty of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1998. He teaches courses and conducts research in Geotechnical Engineering, Numerical Modeling in Geomechanics, Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, Tunneling in Soil and Rock, and Excavation and Support Systems. In addition, he also works on geotechnical and tunneling applications of deep learning, artificial intelligence, visualization, augmented reality, and imaging. He has published over 300 articles and is co-inventor on four patents. His research group developed the software program DEEPSOIL that is used worldwide for evaluation of soil response to earthquake shaking. His work on seismic design of underground structures is extensively used in engineering practice.

Professor Hashash is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), a past president of the Geo-institute of ASCE and has received several teaching, university and professional awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the ASCE 2014 Peck medal. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2022 one of the highest recognitions for an engineer in the US.

Host or Publisher ASCE Met Section Geo-Institute Chapter