30
Geotechnical News • June 2012
THE GROUT LINE
Paolo Gazzarrini
Overture
Welcome to the 27
th
edition
of the Grout Line, after a
short “spring break” (March
issue) due to a very busy
start to 2012. The grout-
ing industry has been
very lively, mainly for the
organization and participa-
tion in the 4
th
International
Conference on Grouting and
Soil Mixing held in New
Orleans during the month of
February.
The following article has
been re-printed from “Deep
Foundation”, the magazine
of DFI (Deep Foundation
Institute) and my personal
comment about the con-
ference is that:
IT WAS A
BLAST!
For several reasons:
number of participants, qual-
ity of the papers, quality of
key note lectures, quality of
the exhibitors and, dulcis in
fundo, the Mardi Gras events
during the conference.
For this issue we have also
a very interesting article
prepared by Jim Warner,
and a lot of the top people
of the grouting industry as
co-authors. The topic of
the article is the discussion
of continuous monitoring/
recording of parameters
in our drilling & grout-
ing industry, further to an
animated discussion held in
New Orleans.
4
th
International Conference on Grouting and Soil Mixing
reprinted from Deep Foundations, The
Magazine of the Deep Foundations
Institute
ICOG –explosive growth,
exponential growth
The Fourth International Conference
on Grouting and Deep Mixing (ICOG)
met in February in New Orleans,
La., in record-breaking numbers. The
group began in 1982 with 419 attend-
ees, and the 2012 attendees numbered
over 700. ICOG, which stands for the
International Conference Organization
for Grouting, has become he infor-
mal name for the geotechnical subset
specialty professionals. The chairs
were Michael Byle, Donald Bruce and
Larry Johnsen, who were helped by
a committee of 13. DFI managed the
entire international event. The core
group’s original plan was to reconvene
every ten years, and that plan has been
realized, except for a year’s slippage
in 2003.
Superlatives abounded at ICOG. Of
the 700-plus attendees, the number of
non-North American participants rose
to 240, who came from Asia, South
America, Europe, Australia and Africa
highlighting the importance of and
the interest in the deep foundations
industry’s expertise worldwide. There
were about 30 concurrent sessions,
and roughly 150 separate presenta-
tions. These covered state-of-the art
in several areas, current research
findings, the evolution of the several
technologies, and included innovations
in grouting, soil mixing and associated
equipment. Six keynote speakers drew
large audiences even those starting at
7:30 am, notwithstanding the previous
evenings Mardi Gras festivities.
The three ICOG chairs, Johnsen, Byle
and Bruce, opened the meeting with
comments about Hurricane Katrina
and its devastation of the New Orleans
levee system and the deep mixing
techniques used to repair and reha-
bilitate the post-hurricane damage in
a dauntingly short time frame of 14
New Orleans.
