EUROCK 2017 report Number of registered participants: 245 Number of attended participants: 229 Date: June 19 24, 2017 (including workshops and technical visits) Venue: Auditorium GONG & Clarion Congress Hotel, Ostrava, Czech Republic Organizer: NG of the ISRM of the Czech Republic & Institute of Geonics of the Czech Academy of Sciences Venue of the Symposium Auditorium Gong, Lower Area of Vitkovice Workshop before the symposium: Workshop on Simulation of Fractured Rock Masses organized by ITASCA from Germany was held before the symposium. Main goal of the workshop was the introduction and practical examples of numerical simulation methods for fractured rock and workshop was designed for engineers from mines and underground constructions and scientists from academic institutions. Workshop was very successful with attendance of 40 participants from 15 countries. Five lectures were given by Mr. Christian Missal form Germany, Prof. Heinz Konietzky, from Germany, Mr. Le Goc Romain from France and Prof. Stefano Utili from the UK.
Participants of the Workshop on Simulation of Fractured Rock Masses Symposium Symposium started by Welcome reception on Monday evening on the 19 th of June 2017 as an informal meeting of EUROCK 2017 participants. This famous and very respecting event came back to the Czech Republic after 12 years, when the first EUROCK symposium was held in Brno city in 2005. Organizers selected a special venue for EUROCK 2017 as a combination of a classical congress hotel and a technical heritage site GONG Auditorium in the Lower Area of Vítkovice where which used to be a huge fuel tank and was reconstructed as a congress hall. The main motto of the symposium was Human activity in rock masses. Distinguished experts, who have been involved in the field of rock mechanics and rock engineering for many years, were invited as keynote speakers. These experts were professor Heinz Konietzky from Germany, Prof. Frederic Pellet from France, Dr. Jiří Ptáček from the Czech Republic, Prof. Walter Wittke from Germany and Prof. Arno Zang from Germany. Many famous foreign colleagues from the field of rock mechanics and rock engineering from International Advisory Committee and International Scientific Committee supported EUROCK 2017 symposium by their personal attendance. These experts were Prof. Charlie Li, ISRM Vice President for Europe from Norway, Prof. Norikazu Shimizu, ISRM Vice President at Large from Japan, Prof. Manchao He, ISRM Vice President at Large from China, Prof. Naj Aziz from Australia, Prof. Hani Mitri from Canada, Dr. Jan Nemcik from Australia, Prof. Yuzo Obara from Japan, Dr. Rajendra Singh from India, Prof. Wulf Schubert from Austria and Prof. Resat Ulusay from Turkey. Two candidates for next ISRM President support symposium by personal attendance, Prof. Resat Ulusay from Turkey and Prof. Jian Zhao from Australia. June 20, 2017: Opening ceremony, morning keynote lecture by Prof. Walter Wittke who talked about Design based on the Anisotropic Jointed Rock Model (AJRM) - Illustrated on the basis of the Large- Scale Infrastructure Project Stuttgart -Ulm with more than 50 km of tunnels; morning parallel sessions in 4 sections - Laboratory and in-situ rock testing, Rock mass properties, New materials and technologies in geomechanics and geotechnics, dynamic phenomena in rock mass; afternoon keynote lectures by Prof.
Pellet who talked about Rock Mechanics meeting the challenge of geo-energies and by Dr. Ptáček who talked about Rockbursts in hardcoal mining in the Czech Part of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin (during his lecture he introduced his book about Rockbursts in Ostrava Karvina coalfiled which was published at the occasion of the symposium); afternoon parallel sessions - Laboratory and in-situ rock testing, Rock mass properties, Mine design and ground control, Underground storage and waste disposal. June 21, 2017: Morning parallel sessions in 4 sections - Laboratory and in-situ rock testing, Rock mass properties, Mine design and ground control, Hydraulic fracturing, Design methodology in mining and underground constructions, Geothermal energy & Mine design and ground control, Dynamic phenomena in rock mass; morning keynote lectures by Prof. Konietzky who talked about Simulation of Hydraulic Fracturing and by Prof. Zang who talked about Fatigue Hydraulic Fracturing; poster session (poster session was held as a special session with a special time without any simultaneous program), afternoon parallel sessions - Laboratory and in-situ rock testing, Rock mass properties, Mine design and ground control, Underground storage and waste disposal, symposium banquette. June 22, 2017: Morning parallel sessions in 4 sections - Laboratory and in-situ rock testing, Design methodology in mining and underground constructions, Mine design and ground control, Dynamic phenomena in rock mass; morning keynote lecture selected from accepted papers by Dr. Al Heib who talked about Pillar Burst Assessment Based on Large-Scale Numerical Modeling; closing ceremony. The famous ISRM colleagues at welcome party (from left to right: Prof. Stephansson, Prof. Zhao and Prof. Li)
Prof. Wittke during his keynote lecture Dr. Maleki s presentation in parallel session
More phots are available on the following website: Participants during discussion in poster session https://www.zonerama.com/ugnav/album/3344441 Proceedings Organizers accepted 257 abstracts which were sent on time. 175 full papers were sent on time for peer review. Peer review of each full paper was done by two independent reviewers. 153 full papers were accepted after corrections according to the reviewers recommendations. All accepted papers were published in Procedia Engineering Journal form Elsevier Publishers, Volume 191, Pages 1-1218 (2017). All papers are available for downloading from sciencedirect.com webpage free of charge: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/18777058/191 Procedia Engineering Journal, Volume 191 has been indexed in Scopus database. Procedia Engineering Journal, Volume 191 will be indexed in Web of Science database during a few months. Electronic Proceedings (Procedia Engineering Journal, Volume 191) on CD will be sent to ISRM after delivering form Elsevier. Technical trips: The first technical trip was organized to a hardcoal underground colliery operated by OKD mining company in Karvina region which is the only producer of hard coal in the Czech Republic and all of its coal is mined in the southern part of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin. One group visited the longwall mining in difficult mining, geological and geomechanical conditions with a high level of rock burst risk. The second group experienced the Room and pillar method which is tested in the deepest conditions around the World here.
Participants of the underground hard coal mine visit (left - longwall visit, right - room & pillar panel visit) The second technical trip was organized to the Construction of Underground Rock Lab in Dolni Rozinka, South Moravia. The unique Bukov PVP underground research facility is situated on level 12 of the Rozna underground mine (600m below the Earth s surface). The laboratory allows experts to perform experiments aimed at investigating the characteristics and behaviour of the geological environment at a depth of a half kilometre beneath the Earth s surface (the storage chambers of the future deep geological repository will be constructed at the same depth) - the behaviour of groundwater, stress changes in the rock mass, seismic activity (i.e. the evaluation of the effects of vibrations caused e.g. by blasting), rock fracture developments, the transport characteristics of rock, the occurrence and dissemination of microorganisms, etc. More photos are available on the following website: Participants of underground rock lab visit https://www.zonerama.com/jsmu/album/3262374?secret=2q6xg0wd2nk3m11fl3dmg3th3
Financial statement The table below shows the fees collected according to the participants registration (amounts without VAT because VAT had to be payed to the government). Collected fees represent 37 participants with regular fees, 67 participants ISRM members and 81 participants up to 35. 44 participants were invited guests free of charge and organizers. Total amount 2 874,64 Euro (5 % of collected fees) will be payed to the ISRM according to issued invoice by the ISRM to BOSorg agency which administrates the symposium budget. Compiled by: Assoc. Prof. Petr Konicek PhD President of the Czech National Group of the ISRM