Geotechnical News December 2011
57
THE GROUTLINE
the dam grouting industry in North
America, and am obliged to Prof.
Lombardi for his most thoughtful
contribution. In 2003, I invited Prof.
Lombardi to present the keynote lecture
(on rock grouting) at the New Orleans
International Grouting Conference.
At its conclusion, I, as session chair,
stated that if he had given this “GIN
Lecture” in the U.S. in the 1980’s or
1990’s, then contemporary practices in
North America would likely be so very
different from what they had evolved
into. I still believe that opinion to be
true. However, res ipsa loquitur, and
the res is that today our best practices
are now somewhat different from those
based on advanced GIN theory, even as
implemented by the experienced and
knowledgeable contractors in such non
“remote” countries such as Switzerland
and Austria. In this regard, I personally
appreciated very much the details of
the newer GIN developments.”
Donald Bruce
We continue with an interesting article
from Michael Byle D.GE, F.ASCE
about grouting in karst. Mike is the
National Discipline Lead for Civil/
Geotechnical Engineering at Tetra
Tech EC, Inc. He holds both Bachelor
and Master of Science degree from the
University of Michigan. He has more
than 30 years of experience in dealing
with geologic hazards including
karst. He is a past Chair of the Geo-
Institute Committee on Grouting and
current President of the International
Conference Organization for Grouting.
He is also the Co-chair of the 4th
International Conference on Grouting
and Deep Mixing to be held in New
Orleans in February, 2012.
– Tetra Tech-
Langhorne, PA)
Managing Risk for Grouting in Karst
Michael J. Byle
Grouting in karst is fraught with
difficulty and uncertainty that increase
performance risks for grouting
operations. Managing this uncertainty
is essential in producing a successful
result when seeking to stabilize or
provide hydraulic cutoff in karst.
Uncertainty is due to the unpredictable
nature of the solution process and
inability to detect the resulting openings
with great certainty. The greatest
risk results where grouting methods
selected are either inappropriate or not
adaptable to the conditions present.
This paper will discuss the nature of
karst features, methods to evaluate
formations for their presence and
methods to assess the performance
and make adjustments to the grouting
process to optimize performance. The
approaches will include a discussion
of geophysical methods and intrusive
drilling and boring methods and how
to integrate results statistically and
geologically to better characterize the
formation, as well as, including the
Observational Method to reinterpret
the characterization based on grouting
performance data.
Figure 1. Vertical solution feature in flat lying limestone.
