We enjoyed a visit today from Professor Man-chu Ronald Yeung. I first met Ron while he was a graduate student at University of California, Berkeley where he was completing his PhD research with Professor Richard Goodman. Our paths keep crossing in the United States, and New Zealand where his wife’s family live.
Ron has had a distinguished career since finishing graduate study in 1991. He has continued his research interest in discontinuous deformation analysis (DDA) while teaching at the California State Polytechnic University at Ponoma.
Ron is recovering from an intensive time working with his Ponoma colleagues Don Coduto and William Kitch completing the second edition of the popular text book “Geotechnical engineering principles and practices“. Ron had a copy with him, hot off the press. The new edition has an enhanced chapter (Chapter 13) on slope stability, and we recommend that TSLOPE users who feel they need a refresher on this topic get hold of a copy of this book.
We had an interesting discussion on where Ron sees DDA contributing to slope stability studies. We shared our experience with software development, in particular the breakthrough we have made with programming Spencer’s method of limit equilibrium analysis in 3D.
We are looking forward to assisting Ron and his students with TSLOPE academic licences.