1991 - Second International Conference on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering & Soil Dynamics

The University of Missouri-Rolla, had hosted a very successful First International Conference on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics in April-May 1981. The Second Conference in the series was planned in 1989 and a Call for Papers was issued in June 1989. The Conference has been co-sponsored and partially funded by the National Science Foundation and National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research. It has been organized in cooperation with the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering; International Association of Earthquake Engineering; Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Seismological Society of America, United States Committee on Large Dams; American Society of Civil Engineers (Geotechnical Engineering Division and Technical Council on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering); ASFE (The Association of Engineering Firms Practicing in Geoscience); Center for Earthquake Studies, SMSU; Landslides Committee (ISSMFE); Association of Engineering Geologists; and Central United States Earthquake Consortium.

In response to our Call for Papers, authors from 31 countries responded including Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Czechoslavakia, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, USSR, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia, making this Conference a truly international one. The large number of papers received were reviewed by a panel of twenty international experts.

The Conference papers and state-of-the-art reports have been printed in two volumes which will be issued before the Conference. The third volume containing reports, discussions, authors' replies, speeches, and special programs will be issued after the Conference. This first volume contains 147 papers, and the second volume contains 103 papers and 9 state-of-the-art reports.

The Organizing Committee was always ready to assist in matters of organization. In the initial stages of planning, guidance was obtained from A.S. Veletsos, W.O. Liam Finn, and Norbert 0. Schmidt. The University of Missouri-Rolla staff has been very cooperative throughout, especially personnel of the Engineering Continuing Education unit. In addition, our secretaries, particularly Anna Hubbard, worked hard to keep pace with the paperwork associated with such a venture. Their work is especially appreciated since everyone knows how difficult it would be to handle such a monumental work without the active cooperation of these people.

The timely printing of the proceedings has been made possible through the efforts of personnel at UMR and UMC Centralized Printing Offices. Without the expertise and technical assistance of these individuals, the proceedings would not exist in their present form. We now look forward to a successful Conference in St. Louis during the week of March 11-15, 1991.

January 3, 1991

Shamsher Prakash, Editor and Conference Chairman