CHINA ROCK 2020 - THE 17TH CSRME ANNUAL ACADEMIC CONFERENCE WAS SUCCESSFULLY HELD IN BEIJING

CHINA ROCK 2020--The 17th CSRME Annual Academic Conference was held in Beijing Jiuhua International Exhibition Center from October 23 to 26, 2020. The conference theme is "Focusing on the bottlenecks of rock engineering, to promote the deep integration of technology and economy" . CHINA ROCK 2020 was held offline with simultaneous online meetings. A total of nearly 6000 participants, including guests and representatives from different industries and sectors including water conservancy and hydropower station, coal and petroleum, energy and mines, road and railway engineering, geological disasters, ecological environment, safety protection, municipal construction, national defense research, colleges and universities.

CHINA ROCK 2020 has three major features: (1) Internationalization: about 30 overseas experts were invited to give online presentations, and totally 4 international parallel sessions were held; 721 abstracts and 420 full texts were received, and 317 papers will be published online by British IOP Press; (2) Large-scale: 23 Parallel Sessions; (3) Integration: 424 oral presentations, 5 technical training courses, and industrial exhibition of scientific and technological innovations of 3000 square meters.

CHINA ROCK 2020 officially opened on the morning of October 24. The opening ceremony was presided over by Prof. Xia-ting Feng, the President of the Chinese Society for Rock Mechanics and Engineering (CSRME). Prof. He Manchao, the Elected President of the CSRME, delivered an opening speech. Prof. Suseno Kramadibrata, the ISRM Vice President for Asia, delivered a video speech on behalf of the ISRM. Mr. Liu Xingping, the Director of the Academic Department of China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), delivered an important speech. 

Professor Suseno   Kramadibrata, firstly  expressed  his   gratitude  to  the

Chairman and the Organizing Committee of the Conference, and also conveyed the compliments from ISRM. He highly praised China's large-scale engineering projects in recent years, such as the Three Gorges Project, Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, Sichuan-Tibet Railway, "FAST", and so on. Finally, on behalf of the ISRM Board, he sincerely wished the Conference a great success. 

A total of 21 experts were invited to give keynote lectures on plenary session. Prof. He Manchao, as the first keynote speaker of "Qian Qihu Lecture", gave a lecture titled "Mining Rock Mechanics Innovation and Future". Prof. Xia-Ting Feng, gave a Keynote on "Localization Analysis Method, Software and Application on Engineering Rock Mass Fracture Process". Prof. Li Shucai, gave a presentation on "Advanced Forecasting of Unfavorable Geological Conditions and Disaster Management in Tunnel". Prof. Zhao Yangsheng, gave a presentation on "In-situ Modified Fluidization Mining". Prof. Yang Chunhe, gave a presentation on "Research and Progress of Rock Mechanics Problems in Deep Shale Hydraulic Fracturing". Prof. Mark Zoback, a Member of American Academy of Sciences, gave a presentation on "Stimulating Production from Unconventional Reservoirs-Three Topics in 3D Geomechanics".  Moreover, on parallel sessions, 30 well-known experts from the United States, Britain, France, Australia, Singapore, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and China gave keynote presentations on the theoretical and technical problems in rock mechanics and engineering that need to be broken through urgently. These presentations not only reflected the innovative achievements of rock mechanics theory and technologies in recent years, but also highlighted the best practices of China's major rock engineering.

An area of 3000 square meters was arranged as exhibition hall, which was divided into six main exhibition areas. There were a total of 154 booths for more than 50 exhibitors. The exhibition hall was visited offline by 6,803 person-times. At the same time, CHINA ROCK 2020 set up online "Cloud Exhibition Hall" and a 20,000-square-meter VR exhibition hall. It provided a platform for displaying and exchanging scientific and technological innovations from engineering equipment manufacturers, scientific research institutes, colleges and universities, and related enterprises and public institutions. An everlasting sci-tech brand exhibition could be realized through the "Cloud Exhibition Hall". So far, more than 48,900 person-times have visited the VR exhibition hall.

During CHINA ROCK 2020, the CSRME Board and Council meetings were held, and the Fifth Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition was also successfully held.