About the Conference
The 2014 BDS Conference will be held at Queen’s University Belfast. The conference will commence with arrivals in the afternoon/evening of Wednesday 3rd September. On Thursday 4th September there will be presentations of technical papers, the Geoffrey Binnie Lecture to be presented by Alan Cooper, an AR Panel Engineer resident in Northern Ireland, and the Conference Dinner in the Titanic Experience, the new museum in Belfast commemorating the ship which was constructed in Belfast.
Friday 5th September will be devoted to technical papers until mid-morning followed by visits to dams and water infrastructure in the surrounding area. There will be further presentations of technical papers on the morning of Saturday 6th September with the Conference concluding at lunchtime. There will be a trade exhibition in the refreshments area for the duration of the conference. A full accompanying persons’ programme in and around Belfast has been arranged, and there is also the possibility of a post-conference social tour to the Giant’s Causeway on Sunday morning, 7th September, returning to Belfast in the early afternoon.
The main theme of the conference will be on how to maintain the safety of existing assets and how to design-in the safety of new ones, and will cover a wide range of topics.
Back to topSubmission of Papers
Papers are invited to cover the following aspects:
- Legislation and statutory requirements.
- The effect of environmental constraints and opportunities on works to dams.
- The practical aspects of risk assessment techniques.
- Design with whole-life safety in mind.
- Safer construction techniques and materials.
- Planning for emergencies.
- Lessons learnt from incidents.
- Rehabilitation to improve safety.
- Operational safety
- Instrumentation and monitoring for the life of a dam.
- Mechanical and electrical components of dams.
- The influence of climate change.
Authors wishing to prepare papers or short technical notes are invited to submit their synopses of not more than 250 words to Andrew Pepper, the BDS Honorary Technical Secretary, by e-mail on atpec@peppernet.org
Information should include the provisional title of the paper, author’s name, address, telephone and e-mail address. Receipt of your synopsis will be acknowledged.
Synopses should be submitted by 8th November 2013
Authors will be informed of whether their synopsis has been accepted by 16th December 2013
Completed papers will be required by 7th March 2014
