Face to Face with Dr Evert Hoek

In an exclusive interview with TunnelTalk, and on the occasion of winning the 2014 Tunneller of the Year Award from the Tunnelling Association of Canada, Dr Evert Hoek speaks of his long career in rock engineering; the value of experience; the importance of mentoring and the obligation to share information. Dr Hoek also introduced his series of online video lectures produced to pass on his wealth of experience. “No two tunnels are alike,” explains Dr Hoek, and “in addition to computation calculations, field work is vital to understand what the rock is telling you.” A recent consultancy assignment was the challenging Egnatia Highway project in Greece with its many twin tube, sequentially excavated tunnels and technical visit to the Olmos hydropower headrace tunnel in Peru that suffered extreme rock bursting.

References
TBM excavation conquers Peruvian Andes at Olmos – TunnelTalk, January 2012
Canada presents 2014 Association Awards – TunnelTalk, October 2014
Rocscience – Dr Hoek online lectures