Prof. Lyesse Laloui awarded the 2020 Kersten Lecturer

The Kersten Lecture is named in honor of Prof. Miles Kersten, whose main research activities focused on frost action in the design of highways. His bulletin “Thermal Properties of Soils” is still used worldwide for heat flow calculations in both frozen and unfrozen soils, and in whose honor the dimensionless number used in soil mechanics equations is named, the Kersten Number.

In a plenary session at the 68^th University of Minnesota Geotechnical Conference, Prof. Lyesse Laloui is invited to present the Kersten Lecture entitled: “Energy Geotechnology: A New Era for Geotechnical Engineering Practice”. Energy geotechnology provides low carbon, cost-effective and local energy solutions to structures and infrastructures, which opens a new era for geotechnical engineering practice, by extending the conventional role of structural design to that of addressing acute energy challenges of our century. The presentation reviews the methodology behind energy geotechnology by highlighting its scope and applications to various geostructures for structural support and energy supply of built environments. Aspects of primary importance for maximizing the energy, geotechnical, and structural performance of energy geostructures and solutions to address this challenge are presented. Moreover, analytical solutions and design tools, as well as performance-based design of energy geostructures are introduced. The end goal being to uncover the potential of energy geotechnology on the path of less dependency on fossil fuels and to emphasize the critical role of geotechnical engineers to take full advantage of this technology.