5ICEGE - Santiago, Chile, 25th-28th June 2007

• 380 delegates (35 countries)

• Hosted by the Chilean Geotechnical Society

• Conference Chair: Ramon Verdugo

The Technical Committee TC203 (ex TC-4) on Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Associated Prob-lems, started up in 1985, reflecting the increasing need and interest of earthquake engineering among the geotechnical engineering community. Professor Kenzi Ishihara was the first chairman, followed by Profes-sor Pedro Seco e Pinto, Professor Liam Finn, Professor Takaji Kokusho and Professor Atilla Ansal (co-chairman). The current chairman is professor Kyriazis Pitilakis. For more than 25 years TC203 has provid-ed the main forum for ISSMGE members in the area of earthquake geotechnical engineering and made significant contributions in responding to the hazards and challenges posed by the major earthquakes. 

Following the resent restructuring of ISMGE and its committees TC 203, is currently compose by 58 members, from academic, consulting and construction industry, representing 27 countries throughout the world, and it covers a wider spectrum of earthquake-associated geotechnical problems.

Following the most successful 4th International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering host-ed in Thessaloniki Greece, on January 2011, we have had the 5th International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering this time in Santiago, Chile. The Technical Committee of Earthquake Geotech-nical Engineering (TC203), the Chilean Geotechnical Society and the Civil Engineering Department Chile’s University organized the Conference jointly. 213 papers were submitted after peer review selection and most of them were presented orally in the 4 days conference. More than 380 people from 35 countries attended the conference. The attendees included a vast majority of world experts in soil dynamics, earth-quake engineering, geotechnical engineering, and earthquake geotechnical engineering and other related topics. Professor Jean –Louis Briaud President of ISSMGE assisted in the opening session and presented an overview of ISSMGE activities and goals.

The third Ishihara Lecture was successfully delivered by Professor Ricardo Dobry of the University of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (USA) with the following title “An Investigation into Why Liquefaction Charts Work: A Necessary Step Toward Intergrading the State of the Art and Practice”.