Piergiuseppe Froldi – Geologist and Geotechnical Engineer –– Past President of Italian Society of GeoEngineering (SIGI)

MSc Geological Sciences – University of Parma (Italy)

BSc Mechanical Engineering – University of Parma (Italy)

MEng Civil & Geotechnical Engineering – CNAM (France).

 

ABOUT ME

I am a geoengineer who has been involved in geoengineering works, such as tunnels, foundations, retaining structures, etc., for over 37 years.

I originally graduated with a degree in Geological Sciences; after a few years of employment in tunnelling and dam foundations, I realized that my university education was inadequate to solve most geoengineering problems. I re-started my studies and graduated first in mechanical engineering (BEng) with a thesis in energetics, then in civil and geotechnical engineering (BEng), with a specialization in geotechnics (MEng) taken one of the prestigious high schools of engineering in Paris (France).

Given my extensive background, I have been working as an engineer for decades on major projects of various types, ranging from mechanical plant engineering to geoengineering of major works.

Fascinated by the physical-mathematical rigor applied to scientific subjects, I soon conceived that most interpretations with empirical correlations of geotechnical tests, such as SPT, are only a preliminary and outdated approach. They because they are not based on rigorous physical-mechanical laws retain an often-unacceptable empiricism and are not sufficiently reliable under most variable operating conditions.

Therefore, I decided to rationalize the SPT test from several interesting articles tracked down in the international bibliography; the result is a procedure, called Rational SPT (SPTR) that is rigorous and reliable, based on sound physical-mechanical laws and careful and meticulous reading of the test results.

I believe the procedure can be further improved, but it already works very well as evident from the many validations I have made with real experimental data.

Anyone who would like to contribute to the growth of the Rational SPT procedure has only to contact me.

Good job to all.

 

DISCLAIMERS

Although the method and software have been correctly designed and validated, there may be calculation errors for which the author does not take responsibility, which remains the exclusive and full responsibility of the user.