On the morning of September 4, 2024, the 53rd CABR Foundation Expert Forum was successfully held. The forum was hosted by CABR Foundation and the Institute of Foundation Engineering of China Academy of Building Research, and co-organized by institutions including the Geotechnical Engineering Branch of the Architectural Society of China. Professor Hou Yujing of the China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research was invited to deliver a keynote lecture titled "Basic Principles, Current Development Status, and Engineering Applications of Geotechnical Centrifuges."

Professor Hou Yujing graduated from the Department of Hydraulic Engineering at Tsinghua University and later conducted postdoctoral research at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He previously served as Deputy Chief Engineer of the Geotechnical Institute at the China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research. He currently serves as a Standing Committee Member of the Geotechnical Testing Professional Committee of the China Civil Engineering Society, Vice Chairman of the Geotechnical Centrifuge Professional Committee, and a member of the Physical Modelling Technical Committee of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. He has led the compilation of the "Specification for Geotechnical Centrifuge Tests," presided over and participated in the translation and review of more than 200 industry standards in their English versions, published 3 monographs, authored over 70 papers, and holds 10 national invention patents. He has received 3 ministerial-level Science and Technology Progress Awards and 8 Science and Technology Progress Awards from the China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research.

At the forum, Professor Hou Yujing provided a detailed introduction to the characteristics, basic principles, application fields, and domestic and international development status of geotechnical centrifuges, as well as the application prospects of geotechnical centrifuges in engineering. He focused on explaining the basic principles of centrifuges and their system composition, emphasizing their unique advantages in simulating the deformation and stability behavior of complex geotechnical structures, particularly their prominent role in consolidation, seismic, and blasting simulation research, which helps raise the level of basic theoretical research in geotechnical engineering and provides a powerful tool for exploring new physical phenomena in geotechnical engineering. Professor Hou particularly emphasized the superiority of conducting research in a hypergravity environment combined with shaking tables, and shared the existing configuration of the large-scale centrifuge experimental platform at the China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, while outlining the future application potential and development directions of large-scale geotechnical centrifuges. After the presentation, Professor Hou Yujing engaged in in-depth exchanges and discussions with the attendees, sharing his professional insights and practical experience on a number of specific issues.