We are delighted to announce that Dr. Pin ZHANG, who successfully completed his doctoral studies under the supervision of Prof. Zhen-Yu YIN, has recently joined the National University of Singapore (NUS) as an Assistant Professor under the Presidential Young Professorship in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

We have eight colleagues attended the 30th congregation of PolyU. Congratulations to them on completing their doctoral studies. Wish them a bright future.

Prof YIN joined the opening ceremony of PolyU Wenzhou Technology and Innovation Research Institute. In addition, he introduced the new lab and our recent research to our guests.

Prof. Yong-Gui CHEN is a professor at College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, China. He has long-time research experiences on unsaturated soils, geo-environmental engineering and urban engineering geology. He has been awarded 14th Youth Geological Science and Technology Award of China Geological Society.

It's the 40th Teachers' Day and a time to be grateful to all teachers. Warm thoughts of love and regards to our loving supervisors.

Warmly welcome to our new joiners! Hope you will enjoy your study in PolyU.

Mr. WU Xian-Han joined the 2024 Guangdong - Hong Kong - Macao Greater Bay Area Geotechnical Engineering Youth Scholoar Forum. He shared his research on the topic of "A novel SNS-PFEM framework for thermo-hydro-mechanical large deformation geotechnical problems", and he won the first prize of the student preseantation competition on August 24.

Our colleague YU Lu-Jia successfully passed the PhD oral defense on the topic of "Two-dimensional Stabilized Node-based Smoothed Particle Finite Element Method for Fluid Flows and Their Interaction with Structures in Offshore Engineering".

Our colleague XU Wang-Qi successfully passed the PhD oral defense on the topic of "Investigation of Soil-soil and Soil-FRP Interfacial Mechanica Behavior using Molecular Dynamics Simulations".

Our colleague LI Peng-Lin successfully passed the PhD oral defense on the topic of "Experimental Investigation and Numerical Modelling of Clay Slurry Consolidation Considering Creep".

Prof Chuang YU, Ph.D from Southeast University. He currently serves as the president of Zhejiang Industry & Trade Vocational College and the Director of the Key Laboratory for Soil Pollution Prevention and Control in Wenzhou. He has been recognized as "151 Talent" in Zhejiang Province. His research focuses on environmental geotechnical nengineering, soft soil foundation treatment, and geological hazard analysis.

Dr. Hao Sun is currently an Associate Professor with Tenure in the Gaoling School of Artificial Intelligence at Renmin University of China (RUC). He received his Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics from Columbia University in 2014 and did his Postdoc training at MIT during 2014-2017. He was a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh (2017-2018) and at Northeastern University (2018-2021)before joining RUC. His research interests lie in the fundamental theory algorithms and interdisciplinary applications of Al for science, Al-enabled scientific computing, and scientific machine learning. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles in top-tiered journals Machine Intelligence, Nature(e.g.,Nature Communications, JCP, CMAME) and top computer science conferences (e.g., lCLR, NeurlPS, lCAl).

Our colleague ZHANG Hao-Ran successfully passed the PhD oral defense on the topic of "Intelligent Identification, Reconstruction, and Geometric Evaluation of Granular Soils Based on Deep Learning Techniques".

Our colleague LOU Kai successfully passed the PhD oral defense on the topic of "Experimental Study of the Ground Improvement on HKMD using Vacuum Preloading, PrefabricatedDrains and Recycled Fibres".

Our colleague PAN Yu successfully passed the PhD oral defense on the topic of "Experimental and Numerical Study of Hybrid Prefabricated Horizontal Drains and Prefabricated Vertical Drains Assisted with Vacuum Preloading Method for Treatment of Clayey Slurry".

Dr CHENG is Associate professor at UCL since herPhD and research fellowship at Churchill andPembroke College Cambridge University. Herrelated Geotechnique publications on the topicof micromechanical investigation on crushablesoil plasticity modelled by the Discrete ElementMethod (DEM) have attracted 500+ citations.

Our colleague HE Chang successfully passed the PhD oral defense on the topic of "Risk Assessment of Dredging Processes in Pearl River Estuary - Hong Kong Waters".

Our colleague TENG Jingcheng successfully passed the PhD oral defense on the topic of "Experimental and Numerical Study of Sand-Filled GFRP Pile-Wall System in Reclamation Engineering".

We have many memorable moments in 2023. Here we would like to share the top 10 events with you. Hope we make more progress and achieve bigger success in the next year.

Thanks so much to our participants from all over the world. We have received around 400 registrations. 15 worldwide famous scholars and 51 invited speakers have addressed excellent speeches, so as the 198 young researchers. This symposium could serve as a bridge to connect many research communities and provide very excellent opportunity for global professionals to exchange ideas.

The 9th High-Level Forum on Geotechnical Constitutive Theory was successfully held in Shenzhen University on 26 Oct. 2023. Prof. YIN Zhenyu gave an academic presentation titled "Simulation and Application of Fine Particle Transport in Granular Soils".

The first group meeting of Geoinvention this semester was held on September 26, 2023. The meeting lasted for three hours. During the meeting, all staff and students had an opportunity to give a brief self-introduction to the group members. Each person shared some information about themselves, such as their name, background, interests, and any relevant experience they had in the field of geotechnics.

Our colleague Ze-Yu WANG successfully passed the Oral Defense and became a Doctor! Best wishes for a bright future ahead.

Prof. Chun-an Tang is the Changjiang Distinguished Professor of the Chinese Ministry of Education, a full professor at Dalian University of Technology (DUT), and the director of the Deep Earth Engineering Research Center of DUT. The first part of the presentation will focus on the basic principles, verifications, and characteristics of RFPA. The second part will showcase the representative applications of RFPA in rock engineering at the microscopic, macroscopic megascopic scales.

Prof. HAN is a Roy A. Roberts University Distinguished Professor in the Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering Department at the University of Kansas. He gave a presentation about field and laboratory studies on the behavior of laterally-loaded piles in geosynthetic-reinforced retaining walls.

Dr Ning ZHANG is a research assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University of PolyU. In the webinar, Dr. ZHANG stated that the development of improved deep learning methods is crucial for advancing our understanding of complex phenomena in geotechnical engineering and solving important practical problems.

Dr Shengjie Rui is an MSCA Postdoc Fellow working at the Advanced Modeling Section of the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGl). He gave us a lecture about seabed trenches induced by mooring line motions and their influence on the suction anchor capacity.

Zhongkun “Frankie" Ouyang currently serves as an assistant professor of Offshore Geotechnics at Institute for Ocean Engineering of Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School. This talk offers the interpretation of effective stress friction angle from CPTu data for clays and clayey silts of various stress history.

Dr. Peerapong is now an associate professor and the director of Chiang Mai University- Advanced Civil and Foundation Engineering Center (CMU-RailCFC). The presentation covered the first phase of research works at CMU-RailCFC which focuses on the railway ballast fouling behavior based on advanced geotechnical perspectives.

Prof. YANG gave us a lecture about the constitutive theory of soils. He revealed the mathematical essence of constitutive theories and demonstrated the unified principles underlying different constitutive theories, providing a more comprehensive theoretical foundation for establishing constitutive models for soil.

Lu Jing is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Ocean Engineering, Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University. In this talk, two common yet poorly-understood aspects of granular flows are discussed.

The 14th National Conference on Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics was successfully held in Wuhan, China, 7-9 Apr 2023. At the conference, Prof. Zhen-Yu YIN gave a presentation about the practice of machine learning in the constitutive modeling of soils.

Dr. YANG's research focuses on soil constitutive theory, deep foundation pits and slopes, and theresearch and design of foundation engineering. The title of his presentation is 'New Developmentsin Foundation Design Theory'.

Dr. Ying-Hui TIAN is an Associate Professor at the Department of Infrastructure Engineering, the University of Melbourne, and he is currently an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow.

Dr. Chao LI has more than 20 years' experience in in geotechnica engineering, advanced finite element analysis, seismic design aswell as detailed engineering design, design review anooptimization for both permanent and temporary civil engineering works.

Dr Liming HU is Professor of GeotechnicalEngineering at Tsinghua University, and Principal Investigator at the State Key Laboratory of Hydro-Science and Engineering.

Prof Fang LIU is a full professor and serves as Vice Dean at the College of Civil Engineering in Tongji University(China).Her research interest lies in the interdisciplinary exploration in the field of geomechanics and geo-engineering,such as energy geotechnical engineering, smart underground infrastructure, and green infrastructure system.

Dr. Qiushi CHEN is an Associate Professor in the Glenn Department of Civil Engineering at Clemson University. The title of his presentation is the ‘Discrete Element Modeling of Irregular-shaped Deformable Biomass Particles’.

Fruitful 2022 is reaching the end! We have so many wonderful moments to share with you. Here we presents ten highlights of this year.

Our excellent colleague Dr. Pin ZHANG has officially finished his PhD study after today's graduation ceremony. Hope he can achieve big success in the future.

We went hiking in Lamma Island. Delicious food, fantastic beach, and lovely buildings made this trip really impressing and iinteresting.

We celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival on the Victoria Peak as well as the Teachers' Day and Prof YIN's birthday. This is also the first time we went out togather in this new acdemic year with a lot of new memebrs around.

Research Grants Council of Hong Kong: General Research Fund, Topic “Multiscale approach for granular materials reinforced by disposable face-mask chips”. Total HK$ 1,113,600, Grant No. 15226822, Period 2023.Jan.-2025.Dec., PI-Zhenyu YIN.

Dr. Pin ZHANG, supervised by Prof. Zhen-Yu YIN，defensed on July 2022 and was recently awarded the Newton International Fellowship. He will go to the University of Cambridge and the Alan Turing Institute to continue his research work.

Dr. Wei-Jian LIANG, from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, gave us a talk on "A multiscale, multiphysics framework for granular material". Thanks a lot for sharing massive information on his excellent research work.

Thanks to Dr. Shuai ZHAO for sharing his PhD research, "Image instance segmentation, evaluation and grouting prevention for apparent defects of shield tunnel linings", which led to heated discussion among our audience. Dr. Shuai ZHAO is from Tongji Univeristy, Shanghai, China.

Dr. Mao-Zhu PENG, from the University of Western Australia, gave us a talk on the topic of "Numerical investigations into the uplift of offshore foundations at varying rates". Thanks for sharing his interesting research work with us.

Dr. Shao-Heng HE, from Zhejiang University, shared his Phd research about "Dynamic properties of calcareous sand filler and long-term settlement of foundation filled with calcareous sand under traffic loads". In addition, this was the first gathering in this academic year. We have serveral new faces around. Warmly welcome!

Mr. Hao-Ran ZHANG and Mr. Bidur PATHAK presented their research progress and future plan. Congratulations to them on passing the confirmation!

Mr. Pin ZHANG did lots of excellent research about artificial intelligence in geotechnics. He finished his PhD study within 2 years and shared fantastic reseach with us. Congtatulations to him on becoming a Doctor!

The International Symposium of Intelligent Geotechnics was held on 10-11 June in order to review the current developments of interdisciplinary research between geotechnics, geoscience, artificial intelligence, and data science, as well as to explore the potentials and opportunities of integrating existing/emerging artificial intelligence, machine learning, 5G and IoT techniques into the conventional research and practice in geotechnical engineering, engineering geology, geoscience, and other related fields.

We haven't gathered together for over five months due to the sudden COVID overbreak in HK. Luckily we helped each other and are all safe. This weekend we headed towards Cheung Chau Island. Delicious food, awesome beaches and exciting hiking, everything turned into happiness because we were playing with our excellent friends. This is a really lovely family!

We have four PhD students successfully passing their confirmation, who were supervised by prof. YIN. They also received valuable advice from Dr. Chao ZHOU and Dr. Zhen LENG. Congratulations to them and hope they have excellent performance during the following semesters.

Congratulations to three PhD students, Zeyu WANG, Gengfu HE, and Chang HE, for obtaining the “Best Student Presentation Award” during the 25th Annual Conference of HKSTAM 2022 and the 17th Jiangsu – Hong Kong Forum on Mechanics and Its Application held on 23 April 2022. They are supervised by Dr. Zhen-Yu YIN, Associate Professor of CEE. Chang HE is also co-supervised by Dr. Alessandro Stocchino of CEE.

A warmly weclome to Dr. Ning ZHANG joining us as postdoc fellow. He gave us a very interesting talk about "Machine learning-based predictive method for tunneling-induced ground settlement and earth pressure".

A paper from Dr Zhen-Yu Yin’s group was awarded the Editor’s Choice of Journal of Engineering Mechanics, which is one of the most classic journals in the American Society of Civil Engineers focusing on the field of engineering mechanics.

Within the confines of material instability, two major criteria can be noted. The first criterion refers to the vanishing of the determinant of the constitutive tensor which signals homogeneous failure at the plastic limit condition, whereas the second criterion involves the vanishing of the determinant of the acoustic tensor (Rice's localization criterion) which coincides with the emergence of plastic strain localization. For materials with an associative flow rule, the symmetry of the elasto- plastic tensor implies that the two aforementioned criteria happen to comcide. However, geomaterials are known to be non-associated in character, which means that the symmetry in the elasto-plastic tensor will be lost.

It's our great honor to invite prof. Hicher to give us a talk about "Investigating clay microstructure at various scales".

Dr. Ya-Jing LIU was an exchange student in PolyU. He did a great job during that year and now he came back as a postdoc fellow. Hope he can achieve more success in the coming year.

Welcome our new postdoc member, Dr. Tuo WANG. Dr. WANG got his Ph.D. degree from Tongji University. It's our great pleasure that he shared his oral defense with us.

International Symposium of Soft Ground and Smart Geotechnology was successfully held online on 7 January 2022 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM. This symposium was organized by The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and the Research Institute of Land and Space (RILS) of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). Chair Prof. Jian-Hua Yin and Dr. Zhen-Yu Yin were the Chairs of the symposium. 11 well known world-leading scholars were invited to give online keynote speeches on the topic of soft ground and smart geotechnology. Over 500 logins (one login may have many participants) joined the symposium online and 60 participants joined the symposium physically.

Time passing by, we have concluded ten highlights of 2021. This year, we have a lot of new members and also new challenges and chances. Hope we can achieve more in the coming new year.

It has been a long time since we went to BBQ last time in Shenzhen. This was Christmas Day and we went to Tai Mei Tuk with famliy and friends. We cooked food ourselves, sharing our recent stories and happiness. Walking along the dam, singing with the wind, all our worries should be gone with time. Let's be brave and embrace the new year and new challenges.

The international workshop of smart infrastructure development towards smart city was successfully held on 20 Nov. 2021. The one-day online workshop was jointly organized by Shantou University, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) and Research Institute for Land and Space (RILS)). Prof. Shuilong SHEN and Dr. Zhen-Yu YIN kindly served as the chairs of the workshop, and Dr. Pei WANG, Dr. Linshuang ZHAO and Dr. Ning ZHANG worked as conference secretaries.

A seminar on the topic of "Mathematical modeling of unconventional geomaterials" was given by Dr. Qi ZHANG. Thanks for his great efforts.

Dr. Ding-Bao SONG was highly appreciated for giving us a seminar on the topic of "Consolidation characteristic Investigation of vacuum assisted prefabricated horizontal drain for treatment of dredged sediments".

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festival in China. People go back home during this vacation and eat mooncakes to celebrate family reunion. Our group went to the Victoria Peak and enjoyed the unique view of the skylines.

Thanks Dr. Yu PENG for giving us an excellent speech on the topic of "The pile-soil interaction in coral sand considering the particle corner breakage".

This is the Teacher's Day in China. Wish Dr. YIN and all the RAPs in our group work smoothly, and good health! All your effort are greatly appreciated and we cannot thank you more.

Our new coming postdoc Dr. Peyman AELA gave us an excellent report about "Numberical and Experiment Analysis of Ballasted Track Lateral Resistance". Thanks for his sharing and welcome joining this group.

Warmly welcome to new coming members! We have three postdocs and ten PhD students / research assistants coming to Hong Kong. This COVID-19 has brought lots of inconvenience and deprived of many chances of face-to-face working and studying. This semester, we finally have this opportunity gathering in POLYU. Hope we all have a good time here.

It has been a long time since we went out togather last time. This time we headed to Peng Chau Island. Peng Chau is a small island located off the north-eastern coast of Lantau Island, Hong Kong. It is known locally for its temples, fishing industry and seafood.

Congratulations to Numan MALIK, Pin ZHANG, Kai LOU, and Yu PAN for passing confirmation. You all have done great job during last two years. We appreciate your contribution and thanks for sharing.

It is our great honor to recommend this book, Constitutive Theory of Granular Soil and Applications, to you. It is written by Dr. Zhen-Yu YIN and published by China Architecture& Building Press.

For all the time you spent here, you brought us great experiences and we admire your brilliant contribution here. Life in Hong Kong 2021 can be tough, but it is also wonderful to have a warm family here. Wish you success!

Dr. Yue-Xiang LIN is a joint-postdoc fellow from Sun Yat-seb University, China. He did a great job on morphology extraction, analysis and reconstruction of realistic particles based on deep learning and digital image. Thanks for sharing.

It is our great pleasure to have Dr. Pei ZHANG in our group as visiting scholar. She gave us a fantastic speech about her research and interests.

This is the best weather in more than one month. No rain, no clouds, and gentle breeze. We headed into Hok Tsui and had a great time there. Cape D'Aguilar, or Hok Tsui, is a cape in the south of Shek O and D'Aguilar Peak on southeastern Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong. Cape D'Aguilar is environmentally protected by setting the area as Cape D'Aguilar Marine Reserve.

Congratulations to Dr. Zhen-Yu Yin invited to be Editorial Board Member of "Transportation Geotechnics" and Editorial Panel Member of "Geotechnique Letters". Congratulations to Dr. Hanlin Wang invited to be Early Career Editorial Board Member of "Transportation Geotechnics".

Happy Chinese Lunar New Year! It is our great pleasure to invite Dr. Alessandro Stocchino to join us! We went hiking from Mui Wo to Discovery Bay. May the New Year bring many good things and rich blessings to you and all those you love!

Sincerely appreciate all the support from our dear friends! We always find ways to get through challenges. Wish all of us achieve success in 2021!

Congratulations to two PhD students, Chang HE and Pin Zhang, forobtaining the “Best Student Presentation Award” during the 24th AnnualConference of HKSTAM 2020 and the 16th Shanghai – Hong Kong Forum on Mechanicsand Its Application held on 5 Dec 2020.

On the first day of November, we shipped to Cheung Chau Island with beautiful weather.

This is a four-day vacation that celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival Day and the National Day of China. We had great fun going hiking on Lamma Island.

Here we thank all the teachers for their kind guidance and patience. And we also want to thank all the students for their hard work and contribution.

It has been 8 months since we planned our team gathering last year! Unfortunately we came across a lot of things during this time.

Dr. FENG Wei-qiang, thanks for making so much effort to our group and helping us in all aspects.

It is our great honor to have a joint group meeting with Prof. LIU Xianfeng and his group from South-West Jiaotong University. This is an excellent start for us to form long-term communication.

It was a happy time to have you working in this group. Wish you achieve something great in the future.

It is our great pleasure to invite Prof. Hicher to give us a talk.