Athanasopoulos George
Dimas

Emeritus Professor
Department of Civil Engineering,
University of Patras

gaa@upatras.gr

George A. Athanasopoulos holds Degrees of Civil Engineering (1975) and Surveying Engineering (1970) from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) as well as MSE (1979) and Ph.D. (1981) Degrees from The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan (USA). He is presently a Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Patras. He has served as member of the Graduate Studies Coordinating Committee and as Head of Geotechnical Engineering and Hydraulic Engineering Division of the Department of Civil Engineering of the University of Patras (2003-2004 and 2005-2006). He is also Chairman of the Technical Council of the University of Patras, since 2006 (and member of the same Council 2003 – 2006).

He has worked as Research Assistant or Research Associate at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA (1978-81, 1985) and at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky (USA) (1989-90). He has taught as Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering of The University of Michigan (1984-85) and as Visiting Associate Professor at the Department of Civil Engineering of the University of Kentucky (1989-90). He is the author (or coauthor) of 5 textbooks, of more than 40 papers in international scientific journals and book chapters and of more than 50 publications in International Conference Proceedings. He has supervised (or supervises) 30 Dissertations (PhD and M.Sc.) in the Civil Engineering Department of the University of Patras and more than 120 (undergraduate) Diploma Theses. He is the recipient of the Thomas A. Middlebrooks Award (2010) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the holder of one Hellenic Patent. He is also member of many International and Hellenic Scientific Committees and Societies.

He has been the Principal Investigator of 11 Research Projects (and member of the research team of many other projects) funded by organizations of the public and private sector. He has served as consultant on projects of Geotechnical Engineering since 1982 to many public or privately owned organizations and technical firms such as Gefyra Rion-Antirion, Athens Metro, Thessaloniki Metro, New Port of Patras, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center at Athens Faliron Delta, Greece, Bypass road of Patras.

His fields of specialization are in Soil Dynamics, Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, Foundation Engineering and Earth Retaining Structures, Reinforced Soil and Geosynthetics (including EPS Geofoam), Mechanical Behavior of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) and Advanced Field and Laboratory Testing.

  1. Athanasopoulos-Zekkos, A., Vlachakis, V.S., and Athanasopoulos, G.A., (2013), “Phasing issues in the seismic response of yielding, gravity-type earth retaining walls – Overview and results from a FEM study”, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Enginering, 55 (2013) 59-70.
  2. Pelekis, P.C. and Athanasopoulos, G.A., (2013), “Seismic microzonation of Chania, Crete (Greece) based on SASW measurements and non-linear site response analyses”, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Enginering, 53 (2013) 145-159.
  3. Zekkos, D., Grizi, A., and Athanasopoulos, G., (2013), “Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Fibrous Reinforcement on Shear Resistance of Soil-Waste Mixtures”, ASTM, Geotechnical Testing Journal, Vol. 36, No. 6, 2013.
  4. Zekkos, D., Vlachakis, V. S., and Athanasopoulos, G. A., (2013), “The December 29th 2010 Xerolakka Landfill Slope Instability: Reconnaissance, Field Measurements and Stability Analyses”, Environmental Geotechnics Journal, Institution of Civil Engineers (in press).
  5. Batilas, A., Pelekis, P., Vlachakis, V., and Athanasopoulos, G., (2013), “Soil Liquefaction/Nonliquefaction in the Achaia-Ilia (Greece) 2008 Earthquake: Field Evidence, Site Characterization and Ground Motion Assessment”, International Journal of Geoengineering Case histories, http://casehistories.geoengineer.org, (in press).