The 21st GFWA Prize for final year undergraduate projects in geomechanics at universities of Western Australia was held by the Australian Geomechanics Society on 8 October at Engineers Australia of Perth. This year’s master of ceremony was Hugo Acosta-Martinez who chairs the AGS WA Committee. The judges were Rick Poiveson and Mark Orr, respectively from Galt Geotechnics and Worley Parsons. While, as previous years, Curtin University and UWA had participants in this year’s competition, for the first time ever, Edith Cowen University (ECU) was also able to compete. This year’s winner, as chosen by the judges, was Guan Tor Lim of UWA whose project title was “Influence of sample disturbance on intermediate soil characterisation”. Matthew Addis of Curtin University was chosen by the audience as the best presenter. His project title was “Soil stabilisation by microbial induced calcite precipitation”. Calypso Haggert from UWA and Dominic McGonigle from ECU presented their projects, respectively titled “A comparison of Australian retaining wall standards with Eurocode 7” and “A numerical study on stresses around a cavity within a rock mass”. Babak Hamidi, GFWA’s marketing manager, presented the prizes to the winner, best presenter and finalists.

Babak Hamidi presenting the winner’s prize to Guan Tor Lim