GEOTEC and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Manfred Kany

In 1961, the Geotechnical institute LGA Nuremberg in Germany was the first to propose to use computer for settlement calculation. For this purpose, a computer program for computer type ZUSE Z 23 was developed and presented at the German geotechnical conference in Berlin in 1964. In that time, Prof. Kany, who was the head of Geotechnical institute LGA Nuremberg since 1955, developed during his a longtime in LGA computer programs for Geotechnical problems. He was the first one in Germany, who dealt with electronic calculations, namely by the computer "Zuse 4". The computer has accompanied the entire career of Prof. Kany until shortly before his death. He with the collaboration of his friend Prof. Konrad Zuse - the inventor of the computer - can be considered as the founder of the Numerical Analysis in Geotechnical Engineering. After he retired in 1987, he established the firm GEOTEC and developed the series of GEOTEC programs.

In 1994, Prof. Mohamed El Gendy finished his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Kany. Because of his PhD research, he further developed the program ELPLA, which was originally developed by Prof. Kany for analyzing rafts by Modulus of Compressibility method. After that, Dr. Amin El Gendy joined the team during the development of the GEOTEC Office suite.

After the death of Prof. Kany, GEOTEC Software Inc. was incorporated in Canada to continue developing GEOTEC Office suite.

GEOTEC and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jürgen Hanisch

In 1981, Dr. Hanisch was involved as authoritative for the work of "GruSiBau" (Safety requirements in construction). Dr. Hanisch was also the chairman of the working committee of piled raft guideline "KPP-Guideline" and together with Rolf Katzenbach and Gerd König published the book:

Kombinierten Pfahl-Plattengründung (Combined piled raft foundation) Jürgen Hanisch, Rolf Katzenbach, Gerd König Ernst & son, 2002

The basic idea for analyzing piled raft by ELPLA originated during a demonstration of the program at the German geotechnical conference "Baugrundtagung 1998" in Stuttgart by Dr. El Gendy through the showroom of Geotechnical institute, Uni. Siegen.

At that time, Dr. Hanisch and  Dr. El Gendy discussed the possibility to develop an iteration method to analyze piled raft by ELPLA for the first time. In the proposed method, settlements of raft nodes with pile heads at the first iteration step are assumed from the load settlement relation of pile according to DIN 4014. Due to this discussion and further corporation and exchange of ideas, the method of El Gendy/ Hanisch/ Kany for analyzing piled raft is published in the German journal "Bautechnik":

Empirische nichtlineare Berechnung von Kombinierten Pfahl-Plattengründungen (KPP) (Empirical nonlinear analysis of piled raft) Mohamed El Gendy, Jürgen Hanisch, Manfred Kany Bautechnik 09/2006; 83(9):604-617.

GEOTEC and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Richard Herrmann

Since 1994 until now, Prof. Herrmann is the head of Geotechnical Institute at Siegen University in Germany. He was a lecturer and visiting professor at Technical University of Dresden (1990–1999) and dean of the Department of Civil Engineering at Siegen University (2003–2005). He is the author of textbooks and publications in the field of Geotechnical Engineering. Besides, he is a member of DIN - Standards committees and EUROCODE for Geotechnical Engineering.

Prof. Herrmann is the first one, who applied ELPLA for analyzing either raft or piled raft through the supervision on their student researches at Siegen University:

• Cruz, L (1994): Vergleichsuntersuchungen zur Bauwerk-Boden-Wechselwirkung an einer Hochhausgründungsplatte zwischen den nationalen Normen und dem Eurocodes (Comparative studies for soil-structure interaction on a high-rise building raft between the national standards and the Euro codes), Diplomarbeit, Siegen University.

• Hattab, F (2007): Vergleichende Untersuchungen  numerischer Modelle für die Berechnung von Pfahlplattengründungen (Comparative studies of numerical models for analyzing piled raft), Diplomarbeit, Siegen University.

Since 1994 until now, he organizes seminars and workshops for ELPLA at Siegen University. Many developing in ELPLA were the result of his discussions and encourage. He is also the coauthor of the consolidation calculation method in ELPLA: 

• Herrmann R, El Gendy M (2014): A layer equation method for 1-D consolidation under time-dependent reloading, Ain Shams Eng J.

GEOTEC Office Authors:  Prof. M. El Gendy and Dr. A. El Gendy