HISTORY

Louis François Auguste Ménard, undergraduate student at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, deposited on January 1955, via his alumnus P. Regimbeau, a patent on the pressuremeter.

This apparatus resulted from Menard’s fruitful thoughts when, as a student trainee, he was handling soil samples at a job site. He then submitted his idea in his graduation project in the shape of a theory and a first prototype. Next year, at the University of Illinois in cooperation with Professor Peck, within the four semesters he spent at the Talbot Laboratory, Menard built a second pressuremeter prototype and started his tests. He understood that he had to develop a new approach too for the design of foundations whereby the pressuremeter will play a central role.

With such a new vision of geotechnical engineering, from the late sixties up to his untimely death in 1978, Louis Menard could become the pioneer in the ground improvement field. With pressuremeter tests he could perfectly demonstrate the soil improvement rate in terms of expected settlements before and after treatment.

The International Symposium for the 60th Anniversary of the pressuremeter “ISP8” is the seventh version of a Conference series initiated, first, in 1982 by the Conference organized by the “Institut Français du Pétrole” and the “Laboratoires des Ponts et Chaussées” network under the auspices of the “Comité Français de la Mécanique des Sols et des Fondations” from April 19 – 20, 1982 on the theme “The Pressuremeter and its Marine Applications”. It was chaired by Professor P. Habib, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris. The Proceedings were published by Technip (Paris).

The second Symposium, initiated by Professor Jean-Louis Briaud, was held at the Texas A&M University (United States) on May 2 – 3, 1986, on the same topic. This event was sponsored by the D18 Committee of the American Society for Testing and Material (ASTM) and the Waterways Experiment Station of the U.S Army Corps of Engineers. Professors J.-L Briaud and J. M. E. Audibert edited the Proceedings of this Symposium, which were published in the Special Technical Publication No.950 of ASTM.    

The third version “ISP3” was organized by the British Geotechnical Society at the University of Oxford (UK) from April 2 – 6, 1990. The organizing Committee, chaired by Pr. C.P. Wroth, enlarged the Symposium theme to all applications of pressuremeter tests in soils and soft rocks. The Thomas Telford House published the Symposium Proceedings (London). 

“ISP4”, as the fourth version, was organized by the “Université de Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada” from May 17 – 19, 1995 on the theme “The Pressumeter and its New Avenues”. This Symposium marked fourty years of pressuremeter’s investigations. The Organizing Committee was chaired by Professor B. Ladanyi. The Symposium Proceedings were edited by Professor G. Ballivy and published by A.A. Balkama, Rotterdam. 

The fifth Symposium “ISP5 – PRESSIO 2005” was organized by the Technical Committee 16 of the ISSMGE at “École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées” (France). The fifty anniversary of pressuremeter was celebrated during this Symposium held from August 22 – 24, 2005 during which an exchange of experiences related to pressuremeter testing, interpretation of measurements, and use of obtained sol parameters in foundations design and in soil improvement control was possible. The Ministry of Public Works, The French Committee of Geology and Evironmental Engineering, the French Committee of Rocks Mechanics, the French Committee of Soil Mechanics and The Union of Geotechnical Engineers sponsored “ISP5 – PRESSIO 2005”. Mr. Michel Gambin chaired this Symposium. The Proceedings included two volumes: No.1 included scientific papers; No.2: Louis Ménard’s memories, keynote lectures, national and regional reports, answers to exercice on a loaded pile, discussions minutes on the six themes of the Symposium and concluding remarks. Edited by Mr. Gambin, Mr. Magnan and Mr. Mestat, they were published by LCPC, presently IFSTTAR.

The sixth Symposium “ISP6-PRESSIO 2013” was held during a half-day parallel session to the 18^th Conference of the International Society for Soil Mechanics in Paris (ICSMGE), from September 2 – 6, 2013. Sponsored by the CFMS French Society with success, ISP6 allowed 14 speakers to speak on their own research work chosen out of 37 papers selected within 2 months’ time. Mr. Michel Gambin chaired the Organizing Committee. Apageo who also provided all the texts on a flash disk published the list of papers in a booklet.

The International Symposium organized for the 60th Anniversary of the Pressuremeter “ISP7-Pressio2015” is the seventh version of a conference series initiated in 1982. ISP7 is organized by the Tunisian Association of Soil Mechanics (ATMS) from 1st to 2nd May, 2015 in Hammamet, Tunisia as a part of the 16th African Regional Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ARCSMGE). Professor Wissem FRIKHA, Serge Varaksin and Mickel Gambin chaired this Symposium and edited the Proceedings.
The proceedings contain 41 papers and divided into six sections: Keynote Lectures, Equipments and Methods, Pressuremeter Theory, Interpretation of the Pressuremeter Test, Applications to Structures Design and Role of the Pressuremeter in Geotechnical Engineering.

This Symposium will therefore be the eight one “ISP8-PRESSIO 2025” supported by the Service Géologique du Luxembourg, the University of Luxembourg and the International Comité on Pressuremter and will be held from 2nd to 5th of September 2025 at University of Luxemburg.