Prof. Bergado receives IGS Achievement Award
The International Geosynthetics Society, through a nomination of the IGS Thailand Chapter, will award the IGS Achievement Award, a new category of awards recently introduced by the IGS Council, to Prof. Dennes T. Bergado of the School of Engineering and Technology.
Prof. Bergardo is recognized for his contributions to IGS Thailand Chapter and IGS activities as well as for research and application of geosynthetic products. The award will be presented at a special ceremony at the IGS General Assembly of the eighth International Conference on Geosynthetics in Yokohama, Japan, on 22 September 2006.
A 1976 graduate of Geotechnical and Transportation Engineering 1976, Prof. Bergado developed research programs involving prefabricated vertical drains, geotextiles, geogrids and geomembranes at AIT in the last 20 years and was successful in attracting sponsors, many of them manufacturers, suppliers and users of geosynthetic products.
In 1998, Prof. Bergado established the Asian Center for Soil Improvement and Geosynthetics at AIT where he set up research laboratory for geosynthetic testing. In 2001, Prof. Bergado was largely instrumental in the founding of IGS Thailand Chapter and is currently serving as its president.
Prof. Bergado is credited for the success of the prefabricated vertical drain soft ground improvement on subsiding ground in Bangkok, which resulted in a very important impact for the PVD technique in particular and soft ground improvement in general. Since then, numerous projects have utilized the PVD improvement of soft and subsiding ground. The Second Bangkok International Airport Project and the approach roads to this project successfully utilized approximately 300 million meters of PVD as well as other geosynthetic products.
Subsequently, Prof. Bergado worked on electro-osmotic consolidation with PVD and was invited as guest editor of the Special Issue of Geotextiles and Geomembranes Journal on Vertical, Horizontal, Electric-Conducting and Dual Function PVDs that was published in 2004.
Currently Prof. Bergado is working on the removal of the Smear Zone around the PVD by elevated temperatures using the innovative technique called Thermo-PVD.
Several technical publications on geosynthetics have been published by Prof. Bergado. He has also organized several symposia and short courses as part of outreach activities and continuing education to educate the planners, users, designers and academics on the benefits and advantages of using geosynthetic products. Finally, Prof. Bergado developed and teaches the course on Ground Improvement and Geosynthetics, the only course offering geosynthetic engineering for graduate students in Southeast Asia.