For Inshik Park, one of the most interesting things about trenchless construction is also one of its biggest challenges: You can’t see exactly what you’re dealing with underground.
That uncertainty has helped shape Park’s academic research, his involvement with the North American Society for Trenchless Technology and, increasingly, the career he envisions for himself.
Park is a Ph.D. candidate and graduate research assistant in the underground trenchless construction program at the University of Alberta. He has also served as president of the NASTT University of Alberta Student Chapter and has been a regular participant in NASTT’s Trenchless Research Competition.
His involvement in the competition has evolved over time. Park has presented his own research while also guiding and mentoring other students preparing to participate.
“I was more interested in guiding and mentoring another student for the competition rather than entering it myself,” Park says of one of his more recent experiences.
However, Park found himself returning to the competition when the student he was mentoring encountered an unexpectedly lengthy U.S. visa application process and was unable to attend the No-Dig Show.
He already had a paper and presentation prepared for a technical session, and Park and his supervisor, Dr. Alireza Bayat, believed the research could be adapted into a poster presentation.
“I saw this as a perfect opportunity to promote my recent study to the conference attendees and receive valuable feedback from the evaluation committee,” Park says. “Therefore, I immediately started reforming my technical content into a poster format.”
STUDYING HDD RISK
Park’s research focuses on an issue familiar to anyone involved in horizontal directional drilling: managing the unknown.
His poster, “Application of the Concept of Probabilistic Risk Analysis for the Borehole Stability Evaluation in Horizontal Directional Drilling,” explored the application of a probabilistic method to hydraulic fracture analysis in HDD.
The approach is intended to provide engineers with another way to account for the variables that can complicate underground construction.
“While handling various uncertainties is inherent to underground drilling — for example, in geologically complex settings — a probabilistic approach, often considered in geotechnical engineering, enables a better capture of the influence of uncertainties within input parameters,” Park says.
That information, he says, could ultimately help engineers make better-informed decisions about HDD alignment and depth.
The subject fits naturally with what has attracted Park to trenchless technology in the first place.
Asked what interests him most about the industry, Park has a simple answer: “Uncertainty!”
“Since we cannot directly observe what is happening underground, we need to find ways to utilize the limited collection of information and establish a good system for making our judgments,” he says.
Those judgments require considerable knowledge and experience. Park is interested in finding ways to better understand that decision-making process and make it easier to teach to the next generation of trenchless professionals.
“While such an artistic approach is difficult to teach and learn, I am interested in discovering it more scientifically and systematically so that more people newly entering our industry can better understand what we do,” he says.
LEARNING TO COMMUNICATE
NASTT’s student competitions have given Park another opportunity beyond conducting the research itself: learning how to communicate highly technical information to others in the industry.
That became especially apparent when Park had to convert material developed for a 20-minute technical presentation into a three-minute poster presentation.
“In the beginning, I had a lot of difficulties with restructuring and summarizing my 20-minute technical presentation into a three-minute poster presentation,” he says. “While trimming the contents, I became less confident about my three-minute presentation being able to deliver its message.”
Even after reducing the amount of material, his practice presentations routinely exceeded the three-minute limit.
So Park practiced — repeatedly.
He eventually rehearsed the presentation nearly 40 times, gradually becoming more comfortable explaining the research in a concise format.
“At the beginning, I was not confident,” he says. “However, I gained more confidence as the competition approached.”
The experience illustrates a skill that can be just as important outside academia. Engineers and researchers may understand the technical details of a project, but communicating those concepts clearly to contractors, project owners and other stakeholders is another challenge entirely.
For Park, NASTT involvement has provided opportunities to practice both.
FROM STUDENT TO MENTOR
Park’s progression within NASTT also reflects his growth within the trenchless industry.
His involvement has expanded beyond presenting his own research to helping other students prepare their work for industry audiences. Through the University of Alberta Student Chapter and NASTT events, he has been able to interact with fellow researchers as well as professionals working on trenchless projects in the field, as well as the students participating in the research competition.
“I am impressed by the peer students’ passion and their capabilities,” he says. “With our very best efforts, competing with such dedicated contenders and high-quality entries is indescribably exciting.”
Those connections are particularly important in a specialized industry where research conducted at universities can eventually influence the methods engineers and contractors use in the field.
Park wants to be part of that exchange.
CONNECTING RESEARCH WITH THE FIELD
Although Park knows he wants trenchless technology to be part of his career, exactly where he will fit within the industry remains an open question.
“I would love to have my career in this industry,” he says. “The problem is that I have quite broad interests.”
Academia remains one possibility. Park is interested in teaching and continuing to research trenchless technologies at the university level.
But the job site interests him just as much.
He wants opportunities to become involved with real-world trenchless projects and see firsthand how theoretical knowledge is applied — and sometimes challenged — by actual underground conditions.
“While I am interested in teaching and learning trenchless technologies at the university level, I am equally interested in diving into real-world trenchless projects and seeing how the theoretical knowledge is applied and demonstrated in the field,” Park says.
That combination could ultimately allow him to bridge two important parts of the trenchless industry: the researchers developing new approaches and the contractors and engineers putting them into practice.
“Either way, I will enjoy being an engineering educator and a researcher,” he says.
Park is already looking for opportunities to make those connections. He has proposed additional research related to his HDD work that requires collaboration with trenchless practitioners.
“With the passionate collaborators joining in the project, I have more and more findings that I would like to share,” he says. “I will continue working on my research project and share the outcomes in academic journals and conference presentations.”
For Park, that continued research comes back to the same thing that drew him to trenchless technology in the first place.
There will always be uncertainty underground.
His goal is to help the industry get better at understanding it.
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