The British Geotechnical Association (BGA) is the principal association for geotechnical engineers in the UK.
The lecture is based on the paper that won the 2025 BGA Case Histories Award.
This event is planned as an in-person event, and will also be webcast live.
Advance booking is required for both in-person attendance and on-line viewing.
This event is free to attend.
Photographs may be taken at the event and used for BGA promotional purposes; if you have any objections please contact the BGA via email.
Event sponsorship opportunities available – Showcase your brand to a targeted audience of industry professionals. To learn more, please email the BGA, bga@ice.org.uk
The British Geotechnical Association
21.04.2026
18:00 - 19:30
Institution of Civil Engineers, One Great George Street, London SW1P 3AA
Advance booking is required for both in-person attendance and on-line viewing. A booking link will be available nearer the event
BGA Meetings
Tea and Coffee will be available from 17:30
One of the reasons for the escalation in railway electrification costs that occurred around 2010 was the specification of pile foundations that were rather longer than had previously been used in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. The talk will explore the reasons for this, with reference to limit equilibrium, empirical and elastic soil-structure interaction calculations and design philosophy with regard to ultimate and serviceability limit states. Results of careful field tests carried out to determine appropriate mechanisms of pile behaviour to inform the basis of analysis and design philosophy will be presented, and some conclusions drawn for future railway electrification schemes.
The lecture will be on the paper “Full-scale tests on laterally loaded railway overhead line equipment mast foundations” by authors David Richards, William Powrie, and Anthony Blake, published in Geotéchnique in 2023, which was awarded the 2025 BGA Case Histories Award.
The paper can be accessed via the ICE Virtual Library HERE.
Widely viewed as the most prestigious of the invited lectures in geotechnics and was first held in 1961.
View Event