Title

AI in offshore geotechnics and geoscience 

Description

Like many scientific fields, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) is starting to demonstrate its effectiveness in solving offshore geotechnical and geoscience problems. However, AI is not yet part of the routine toolkit used by most engineers and scientists. The goal of this special session is to inform the scientific community about advances in the application of AI in offshore geotechnics and geoscience, with a particular focus on the offshore renewables sector. Application domains will encompass a range of topics such as offshore foundation design, ground modelling, site investigation, and offshore monitoring.  

Target audience

Researchers (academics and PhD students) and industry practitioners (engineers and geoscientists) working in offshore geotechnics and geoscience.  

Planned format of the special sessio

The session will commence with a keynote lecture by Professor Susan Gourvenec, who holds the Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies for Intelligent & Resilient Ocean Engineering. She is also the Deputy Director of the Southampton Marine & Maritime Institute and a Professor of Offshore Geotechnical Engineering at the University of Southampton. Prof Gourvenec's lecture, 'Challenges and Opportunities of AI in Offshore Geotechnics,' will explore how AI can improve the efficiency, accuracy, and reliability of offshore geotechnical techniques. She will also discuss how AI can optimize design solutions to alleviate capacity challenges and overcome current barriers of scale and pace to decarbonize the global society and economy. 

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Following the keynote lecture, there will be talks based on papers submitted for the session. These talks will cover various topics such as applications of AI to improve general prediction of offshore foundation behaviour, intelligent ground modelling, and AI-enhanced sensors for offshore foundation monitoring.

The session will conclude with a 30-minute panel discussion featuring academics and practitioners from the offshore industry. The panel discussion will focus on the 'Challenges and Opportunities of AI in Offshore Geotechnics' in line with the keynote lecture. The purpose of this discussion is to facilitate a dialogue between industry practitioners and scientists on the potential challenges and unexplored opportunities in applying AI in offshore geotechnics.  

 
Publicity and promotion plan
• Promotion through existing academic and industry network of the organisers 
• Promotion through TC209: Offshore Geotechnics 

Organisers

(Main contact: stephen.suryasentana@strath.ac.uk)  
• Dr Stephen Suryasentana (Lecturer, University of Strathclyde) 
• Dr Brian Sheil (Associate Professor, University of Cambridge) 
• Dr Róisín Buckley (Lecturer, University of Glasgow) 

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Dr Suryasentana’s research is focused on developing smart, autonomous solutions based on Bayesian machine learning (ML) to make better data-driven decisions in offshore ground modelling, site investigation planning and offshore foundation design optimisation. Dr Sheil’s research is focused on the area of intelligent construction monitoring, where new solutions based on Bayesian ML, deep learning and novel smart sensors for real-time monitoring are developed to inform construction processes and improve design. Dr Buckley’s research is focused on modelling and experimental study of geo-materials, advanced laboratory testing and new site characterisation techniques, with a specific focus on pile foundations and the offshore renewables sector. Dr Suryasentana has served on the organising committee for a series of seminars on cross-disciplinary applications of ML at Wolfson College, Oxford and Dr  Buckley has served on the organising committee for the 2018 BGA Chalk conference. 

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