8197955837

DEUXIEME SEANCE

Mercredi 19 juillet 1961, a 15 h 15.

Le professeur A.W. Skempton, F.R.S., prćside la sćance.

Le President : We now resume our work, gentlemeo, and we consider again item 5.

Point 5 — Rapport du sous-comitć charge de la classification de la litterature geotechniąue

Le President : This is the report of the Sub-Committee on the Classification of Geotechnical Literaturę. I understand that Prof. Casagrande will speak on this point.

M. A. Casagrande (Etats-Unis) : I take great pleasure, on behalf of my fellow membersof the Sub-Committee on the Classification of Geotechnical Literaturę, to report to you that our sub-committee has been able to agree on a major framework, which we have distributed in the form of the Secretary’s report of May of this year, and there is only the following correction to be madę, which is before you. I might read this supplementary report :

“The Sub-Committee met on July 17, 1961, and reached agreement on the use of the five main divisions as presented in the Secretary’s Report, with minor changes in some of the headings as shown below, but with the purpose of each of these major divisions unchanged :

0    “ General ”

1    “ Geotechnical data and Investigations ”

2    “ Theories and Methods of Analysis ”

3 “ Construction Procedures and Eąuipment ”

4 “ Design and Description of Projects and other

Applications ”

The Sub-Committee believes that a number of im-provements in the sub-division could be madę. For this purpose it is recommended that this Sub-Committee be reappointed in order to complete this task ”.

I might say that the sub-committee has not been lazy : we have worked hard, and we have had the benefit of the advice of many of our colleagues; each of the members consul-ted freąuently others. In particular I may mention that our President, Prof. Skempton, has played also a vital role in the efTorts of our sub-committee.

The difficulty we have had over the years is that we have tried very hard to adhere to a decimal system, also in the first order of classification to 10 groups, and that created all sorts of difficulties : we simply could not arrive at agreement. Finally, at a meeting in January of this year in London which was also attended by our President we succeeded in brcaking through this number barrier, so to speak. We realised that the only way we could ever agree was to do something that would permit much morę flexibility. What we have done gives us that fiexibility. In fact we are able if necessary to add additional major divisions, and also among the minor divisions on which we have not yet fully agreed we have now much morę flexibility.

Le President : In thanking Prof. Casagrande for intro-ducing the report of this sub-committee I should like also to thank the members of the sub-committee for the great deal of work they have done, and in particular Mr Flodin of Sweden, who has acted as Secretary to the sub-committee.

The document which we have under consideration is Appendix A in the report prepared by Mr Flodin — “ An International Classification System (Majority Proposal)

I think I should be right in saying that the words “ majority proposal ” are now redundant : this Appendix A is in fact the sub-committee’s proposals, subject only to the sub-headings being reconsidered. Is that so, Prof. Casagrande ?

M.A. Casagrande : That is the proposal, with this minor change in the main headings.

Le President : So we are considering Appendix A, the main headings of which remain unaltered except that N° 3, as Prof. Casagrande has just told you, becomes now “ Construction Procedures and Eąuipment ” and N° 4 has the words “ and other applications ” added.

As you will have heard, the sub-committee are now unan-imous in proposing those as the five main headings. You have all had this document. The changes are so extremely minor that I cannot imagine they will give rise to any further discussion, so I think I will ask whether you are prepared to accept the report from this sub-committee in the sense they are proposing.

M. K.L. Rao (Inde) : I suggest that N° 4 be altered to “ Design and Description and Bchaviour of Projects ”, instead of “ and other applications ”.

Le President : I am not ąuite surę that one can refer to the behaviour of a project. Would the sub-committee consider the removing of the words “ and other applications ” and leave it as “ Design and description... ” ?

M. R. Pietkowski (Pologne) : Could I speak in generał about this classification ? This work of classification has been proceeding for many years now and the last report is a big book on this matter. I think the generał headings must be taken by us they are proposed, but not the dctails. In the proposal, Appendix A, I find, for instance, such cases as this : “ No. 133, Test pits and test tunnels ” and “ No. 45, Tunnel and Conduits ”. I think that the classification must not be so specified.

M. G.D. Aitchison (Australie) : I do not want to speak in detail about this proposed classification because one could talk details for ever, but I would like to speak on a matter of very broad principle. This classification as it was originally intended was a decimal classification, and the propositions which we have seen over the years, originally from the Swedish group and subseąuently from this group, have adhered fairly well to the concept of the decimal classification, in the sense that we have had 10 or ncarly 10 sub-groups at each level of our classification. One of the advantages of such a decimal system of classification is that it permits rationalisation of

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