A mini-symposium on the topic “From geological conditions to numerical modeling of underground excavations” in the forthcoming 3rd International Conference on Computational Methods in Tunneling and Subsurface Engineering (EURO:TUN 2013) will be held at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, from April 17.-19. 2013.

In this mini-symposium, the topics of rock mass and soil characterization, parameter identification and upscaling for subsequent numerical modeling of cutting with TBM or other means, as well as for the assessment of the mechanical behavior of underground excavations (deformability & stability) will be discussed. Old-times classics FEM and BEM methods or more sophisticated numerical methods like coupled DEM-FEM etc cannot be effectively applied for predicting the behavior of openings and excavation machines in “opaque-heterogeneous-size dependent-nonlinear geological environments” unless proper constitutive models and material parameters are identified and implemented in the final 3D ground model ready to run in the computer. Size effects of jointed rocks, as well as of soils, models of heterogeneous grounds and material parameter identification as well as constitutive testing of soils and rocks, almost real-time rock-soil parameters identification and prediction during excavation, real-life case studies will be discussed among others.

Abstracts will be accepted until end of Oct 2012 (exadakty@mred.tuc.gr) or via
the conference web-page www.eurotun2013.rub.de.