Design of Column-Reinforced Foundations

Mounir Bouassida is a professor of civil engineering at the Ecole Nationale d'Ingenieurs de Tunis (ENIT) of the Universite de Tunis-El Manar where he earned his B.S., M.S., Ph.D., and doctorate of sciences diplomas, all in civil engineering. He currently teaches soil mechanics and limit analysis courses at ENIT and the Polytechnic School of Tunisia. He is the director of the Research Laboratory in Geotechnical Engineering and has supervised 13 Ph.D. and 29 master of science graduates. His research focuses on soil improvement techniques and behaviour of soft clays. Dr Bouassida is the co-author of 42 papers in refereed international journals; 126 papers, including 17 keynote lectures from international conferences; and a book related to testing in soil mechanics. He is a member of the editorial committees of the journal Ground Improvement (ICE), the Journal of Geotechnical and Geological Engineering, Infrastructure Innovative Solutions (Springer), and International Journal of Geomechanics (ASCE). He is also an active reviewer in several international journals, including the Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering and the Canadian Geotechnical Journal. As a 2006 Fulbright scholar, Professor Bouassida created a novel methodology for the design of foundations on reinforced soil by columns. He was awarded the 2006 S. Prakash Prize for Excellence in the practice of geotechnical engineering. In 2008, Bouassida launched a Tunisian consulting office in geotechnical engineering, SIMPRO. He is a co-developer of the software Columns 1.01 used for designing column-reinforced foundations. Prof. Bouassida held the office of the vice president of ISSMGE for Africa (2005-2009). He benefited from several grants as a visiting professor in the USA (CSUS and MIT), France (ENPC, Paris, Ecole Centrale de Lille, and Ecole des Mines Douai), Belgium (Catholic University of Louvain-La Neuve), and Australia (University of Newcastle).