Celaya, Gto., October 25, 2019.- Francisco Morado Valenzuela, Civil Eng. graduated from the University of Guanajuato Campus Celaya–Salvatierra, proudly represented this institution, Celaya and Mexico at the XV Latin American Congress of Students and Civil Engineering Professionals (COLEIC) 2019, which was held in Bogota, Colombia.

He was one of the ten Latin American students selected to participate in the Latin American Student Lectures Competition, within the framework of the Congress, for the high quality and impact for the engineering of his proposal entitled "Methodology for obtaining of the parameters required by a constituent model for unsaturated soils Barcelona Basic Model", which derived from his thesis work, being its director Dr. Hiram Arroyo Chavez and with which it was titled in June 2019.

A summary version of this article was published in the first edition of the Digital Journal of the Latin American Association of Civil Engineering Students (ALEIC), which has presence and impact throughout Latin America.

In his presentation, Morado Valenzuela proposed a simple methodology for obtaining the parameters required by the elastoplastic constituent model "Barcelona Basic Model" from experimental data in unsaturated soils.

On the model, he explains that this is rarely used in practice due to the absence of simple methods to select soil parameters, so it was sought to simplify the selection process for inexperienced users.

The model, he delves, is able to satisfactorily predict the state of volumetric deformations of the soil against isotropic load conditions with the obtained parameters, however, it has deficiencies in predicting volumetric deformations and deviators in triaxial comprehension tests because the equation and shape of the theoretical elliptical creep surface has deviations from experimental ones. However, the proposed parameters for the cutting stage correctly determined the cohesion, critical status lines, and shear module.

Behind these conclusions is arduous and thorough research work; experimental test results conducted by various researchers were collected on two unsaturated residual soil samples to determine the values of the ten soil parameters and the initial value of the hardening parameter, he explains.

"It was a great responsibility and a great honor for me to be one of the three Mexicans who represent the country at this event. It was a great surprise and pride to have been selected and to be at the same time as such important institutions as the National Polytechnic Institute and the University of Guadalajara. By living with students and engineers of different nationalities, an enriching cultural exchange is created," he said excitedly.

He thanked his University, who supported him to make a stay in Chile and volunteer in Germany when he was a student. "Now I'm happy to be able to continue to represent it as a graduate and put her name up wherever I go."

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