Institute of Geotechnical Engineering

Research Focus

Geotechnical engineering plays an important role in the life of civil engineers. For constructions with, on and in earth, the geotechnical knowledge is indispensable. Nowadays, geotechnical engineering covers a broad spectrum from soil mechanics and foundation engineering, over deep excavation, damming, tunnelling, geoenvironment to georisk. Our teaching activities are divided into the fundamental syllabus (Geotechnical engineering 1, 2 and laboratory exercise) and a number of syllabi for choice to cater to the special need and interest of the students. Our experience in industry is beneficial for the students, because the hand-on knowledge is significant in geotechnical engineering.

Both fundamental and applied research is carried out in our institute. The fundamental research focuses on constitutive modelling, numerical simulation and geotechnical centrifuge. We have a well equipped laboratory. Some devices are unique in Austria, e.g. geotechnical centrifuge. The results are published in top journals and are further applied in research projects. In addition to the fundamental research, emphasis is given to the research in georisk and sustainable geotechnique. Some highleights are: the EU-Project “NISMIST” in FP6 (Risk management of landfills in seismically active regions in Central Asia), the FWF-project “Numerical modelling of snow avalanches” and the FFG-project “Green noise barrier”.