BTS & BTSYM | CHAIRS’ CORNER
director John Clifton and their health & safety manager
Douglas Price, who lead the visit. In addition to lectures and site visits, the BTSYM has
held a number of workshops covering a variety of topics, from back to basics of soft ground tunnel design, to using ground modelling software, and preserving skills like designing timber headings. The Soft Ground Tunnel Design workshop was held
in May at the ICE, and led by Benoit Jones, author of the textbook Soft Ground Tunnel Design and engineering director at BEMO Tunnelling UK. He served as the director of the MSc at Warwick from 2011 to 2015, which we hope will come back soon! The workshop included teaching, worked examples and opportunities to DIY, and was divided as follows: What’s important in tunnel design? Undrained stability; Drained stability; and Estimating ground movements due to tunnelling. The training included going back to the basics with a pencil, calculator and paper for a change! The workshop titled Brief Introduction to PLAXIS for
Below
In Leeds, BTSYM takes part in International Women’s Day Celebrations across the UK.
Top right
Celebrating the Future of Tunnelling at the annual BTS Dinner.
Bottom right
At WTC 2026, young tunnellers from across the globe.
Tunnelling Applications, also in May, was held at Cowi’s Derby office and led by Francisco Santos Marques, their associate geotechnical engineer, who is a certified Bentley PLAXIS FE Qualified Trainer. The workshop covered the main features of PLAXIS, its application to tunnel design, and provided an overview of typical modelling workflow including ground model definition, basic soil and rock constitutive models, groundwater representation, structural elements, meshing and staged construction for excavation. The Design of Timber Headings workshop was held
in March at the ICE, and led by Phil Astle, chief engineer & engineering excellence director at OTB Engineering. He covered: Introduction to Timber Headings and components; Defining load cases and overburden; Design of simple timber headings; Compliance with Eurocodes; and Design of complicated structures and connections. We hosted a gathering where women from across the
spectrum in the UK tunnelling industry shared their stories, struggles and success to add to BTSYM’s Living Collage for celebrating women through stories based on this year’s theme of ‘Give to Gain’, for International Women’s Day 2026
celebrations on 26 March. The gathering was delivered collaboratively by the BTSYM, BTS, British Geotechnical Association Early Career Group (BGA ECG) and the Geological Society, bringing together professionals and early-career members from across the ground engineering community. Thanks to Ramboll’s support, the event took place in their offices simultaneously (London, Birmingham, Leeds), also showing our focus on regional integration. The BTSYM LinkedIn page has more than 7,000 members,
more than double that of ITAym, which is an interesting metric to me as despite being a relatively small nation we can boast a significant international online footprint. The Norwegian young members invited me to join
their strategy session in June to present the workings of the BTSYM as they wanted to learn from our success in mobilising our young members. Moreover, we demonstrated the power of our outreach by organising collaborative webinars: the BTSYM joint webinar with UCAym (Underground Construction Association Young Members USA), in March, focused on digital innovation, sustainability, and workforce culture. The joint webinar with ATSym (Australian Tunnelling Society Young Members) in June collaborated on the subject of Sustainability and Innovation in Tunnelling. The above activities, in addition to our strong presence
at WTC 2026 across the working groups, networking socials and paper presentations, has earned the respect of the global tunnelling fraternity and sorority. This was evident by cheers from the crowd after the collaborative paper presentation on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Tunnelling by Liana Malhan and Negin Dolatraftarhaghighi on behalf of Tasnia Khanom and Arabel Vilas, who had written it. For me, it showed the epitome of synergy amongst our diverse lot, and it is for moments like these I know once again ‘Why I am doing, what I am doing?’
40 | July 2026
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45
