Rocks and Properties Thereof: Sigra at the 2017 ATS Conference

‘Rocks may not have feelings, but they do have complex characters.’

Sigra had a productive and illuminating three days at the Australasian Tunnelling Society Conference, which took place from October 30th to November 1st.

Australian and international luminaries, tunnelling professionals, government representatives, consultants and academics converged in Sydney for three days of exhibits, keynote presentations, peer-reviewed papers, and networking opportunities.

A major highlight for us was the opportunity to present two research papers to such a diverse group of professionals.

Managing Director, Dr Ian Gray, outlined his findings in two presentations: Sedimentary Rock Properties, and Managed Pressure Drilling.* 

It was a great opportunity to share our wealth of knowledge and experience in somewhat of a personal setting, and to articulate Sigra’s vision for tunnel development and projects in Australia and globally.

Visitors to the Sigra booth were particularly interested in hearing about our latest R&D work, tunnel infrastructure developments, and our latest affiliation with Norwegian ground freezing experts Geofrost.

Sigra Conference Display
Sigra set up for Day 1 of the Conference

 

We’d like to thank everyone who introduced themselves to us at the conference, and we look forward to sharing our insights with you at the next event.
*Abstracts from these papers will be uploaded to our research section in the coming weeks. Full versions of our research papers can be requested via the contact form.


Author: Ian Gray
Ian initially worked in Australia supervising the installation of the first gas drainage system at Central Colliery and then went on to work as Senior Geotechnical engineer building a mining wing to the consulting company DJ Douglas and Partners. In 1990 he became Principal Engineer, Mining Research with the Safety In Mines Testing and Resarch Station of the Department of Resource Industries of the Queensland Government. In this role he worked on frictional ignitions, mine explosions, windblasts, gas drainage and directional drilling including the first surface to in-seam operation in the country in 1991. In 1994 he started Sigra as a one man business. Since then the company has grown under his guidance to span mining, gas, civil, geotechnical work and a number of mechanical and electronic product developments.

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