Most of the Asian countries have registration formalities for civil engineers to practice as professional engineers. Such registration helps the clients to identify engineers who ensure quality and safe designs for their structures. However, separate registrations based on individual specialized subjects like geotechnical engineering, at least as subcategories under the broad field of civil engineering are being done in very few countries. Whereas in structural engineering one deals with materials of constant properties or whose properties can be specified as per the requirements of the structure, in Geotechnical Engineering one has to deal with non-homogeneous materials whose properties also vary considerably. For analysis purposes the structural materials can be idealized into suitable mathematical models. On the other hand, as the soils and rocks can not be idealized, the geotechnical engineer has to develop innovative ideas to adopt the mathematical analysis by suitably modifying them for particular soil conditions encountered in a project. In some projects one has to even modify the in-situ properties of the soil to efficiently fix the structure to the mother earth. Hence, the basic requirement of a Geotechnical consultant is wide experience both in theory and practice. The registration formalities for a geotechnical consultant will therefore have to be different than for other engineering consultants.
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