Aktuelle geokunststoffanwendungen in Deutschland - bericht uber die 6. Informations- und vortragstagung der fachsektion kunststoffe in der 'geotechnik' (FS-KGEO 99)

The 6(th) national conference on geosynthetics (FS-KGEO '99) of the special section 'Geosynthetics in Geotechnics' within the German Geotechnical Society (DGGT) was held on 2. and 3. March 1999 in Munich. About 370 engineers, consultants and students attended the conference. This is the highest number of participants of the prior conferences and shows the acceptance of the FS-KGEO conference (held every two years) and the method of construction with geosynthetics. There were seven sessions with 30 oral presentations regarding to geosynthetics applications in following fields: waste disposals and tunnelling, constructions over weak soil, roads, railways, waterways, steep slopes, research and development. For the first time a poster session was carried out. There were about 20 posters which found lively interest of the conference participants. The accompanying exhibition was formed by 15 producers and consultants. The selection of the papers was done in accordance with the actual work of the working groups within the DGGT. This interaction between the working groups and the practical site works serves the high quality of the worked out papers, regulations and standards, which are not only accepted on a national level. The complete program is published on the web pages of FS-KGEO (http:// www.cip.bauwesen.tu-muenchen.de/bau-verm/ grundbau/fs-kgeo.htm). All the reports (oral and poster presentations) will be published (in German) in the middle of 1999. The article tries to summarize the presentations and shows the possibilities to the geosynthetic works. Some highlights were constructions of steep slopes with the traffic loads on top and well observed high buildings up to failure testings at temporary slopes. At railway constructions the effects of dynamic loadings are still of interest, as well as calculations and the long term observations of reinforced embankments over pile systems. For waterway applications the use of geosynthetic containers and the placing of geosynthetic clay liners under water is shown. Also new aspects to the filter theme are presented. Constructions over weak subsoil use the speeding up of the consolidation with geosynthetics as well as the bearing capacity e.g. at coverings of mud deposits. Other articles show the use of geosynthetics at tunnel sealings and separation and reinforcing geosynthetics within the concrete layers of roads, the base course and the subsoil.