International Doctoral School on Unsaturated Soil Mechanics

In the framework of the Marie-Curie Innovative Training Networks project TERRE (www.terre-etn.com), the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has hosted a Doctoral School dedicated to Unsaturated Soil Mechanics. The organizers Alessio Ferrari (EPFL) and Alessandro Tarantino (University of Strathclyde) wish to acknowledge the support of the European Commission via the Marie-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN-ETN) project TERRE ‘Training Engineers and Researchers to Rethink Geotechnical Engineering for a low carbon future’ (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2015-675762) and the TC 106 of ISSMGE.
The Doctoral School was held at the EPFL campus in Lausanne (CH) by the side of the Lake Geneva from 4^th April to 7^th April 2017. The School aimed to spread knowledge about Unsaturated Soil Mechanics with lectures given by internationally renowned experts. Twelve presentations took place during this four-day school giving to the students a broad overview of the main topics and relative applications.
The school was attended by 56 participants coming from all over the world (17 different countries were represented).

The welcome lecture was held by Prof. Lyesse Laloui (EPFL) together with Profs. Alessandro Tarantino and Alessio Ferrari who introduced the concepts related to the project TERRE. Prof. David Toll (University of Durham) introduced the activities carried out by TC 106 of the ISSMGE.
The first part of the school covered the fundamentals of mechanical and hydraulic behavior of unsaturated soils featuring presentations from A. Tarantino (Basic concepts), A. Ferrari (Mechanical behaviour) and D. Toll (Hydraulic behaviour).

The second part of the school highlighted the constitutive modelling of unsaturated soils, featuring the following presentations: Effective stress concept for unsaturated soils (Prof. L. Laloui), and two sessions dedicated to the description of constitutive models used for unsaturated soils (Prof. D. Gallipoli).
The third part detailed the experimental techniques used in the laboratory to characterize unsaturated soils. This part was held by Profs. A. Ferrari, G. Russo and E. Romero. At the end of the second day, a visit to the EPFL Laboratory of Soil Mechanics was done. After the laboratory visit, a barbecue took place.
The fourth part was dedicated to engineering applications, such as THM problems, engineered barriers, slope stability, soil-atmosphere interaction in embankments and flood embankments. This part was presented by Profs. L. Sanavia, T. Schanz, M. Pirone, Y.J. Cui and C. Jommi.
The final part was dedicated to the field visit to the Mont Terri Underground Rock Laboratory, located closed to St. Ursanne, in the north of Switzerland. The visit detailed all the activities that are performed in such a laboratory, with particular emphasis to radioactive waste disposals.