Российская геотехника в мировой прессе – The 3rd Betancourt Conference, St. Petersburg, Russia (Conference reports).

Augustin de Betancourt is an outstanding offspring of Spain and a citizen of the Russian empire, a founder of the Russian school of engineering, the first head of an Agency for architecture and civil engineering in Russia. Betancourt Conference has become a traditional event, which is devoted to discussion of important engineering problems faced by the professional society. It is remarkable that it is held in the headquarters of the Union of Architects – the House of Architect – a luxurious historical palace in the heart of St. Petersburg.

The Third Betancourt Conference convened on June 22, 2023 was devoted to the topic of “Monitoring and long-term settlements of buildings and structures”. Monitoring is a tool aimed at both providing mechanical safety of structures at their construction and operation and allowing improvement of design solutions and calculation models based on back analysis of measurement results. It serves as a feedback between the reality and calculated predictions.’

The Conference organizers included the Union of Architects, the Russian Society for Soil mechanics, Geotechnics and Foundation engineering, the Institute “Georeconstruction” (St. Petersburg), N.M.Gersevanov Reseach Institute of Bases and Underground Structures (Moscow), the chair “Bases and Foundations” of Alexander I St. Petersburg Transport University and the chair of geotechnical engineering of St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering.

The Conference was held in a mixed format, however the majority of participants and all speakers preferred face-to-face contact and personal involvement. The Conference was attended by 200 participants including more than 20 speakers from different Russian cities and Kazakhstan. The Third Betancourt Conference was opened with a musical introduction, the program included composi-tions of C.Weber, D. Shostakovich, A. Piazzolla.

The first part of the conference was concluded with congratulations on the 85th anniversary of V.M. Ulitsky, A.G.Shashkin devoted him the presentation “Professor V.M. Ulitsky and his scientific school”.