Geotechnical News • June 2012
31
THE GROUT LINE
months. Bruce noted that the work
was the largest use of DM outside of
Japan. In one of the sessions, Peter
Cali, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers (USACE) said that the project
was undertaken with an “Alterna-
tive Evaluation Process,” where the
production rate was key. This concern
led to the selection choice of Deep
Soil Mixing. Cali also noted that the
high price of steel was a factor in
the process. If the work were done
the following year, when steel prices
were lower, T-walls might have been
chosen.
The opening guest lecturer, Eric
Halpin, the U.S. Corps of Engineers
special assistant for Dam and Levee
Safety, said the Corps estimates safety
needs at $26 billion for the 2100
levees and 694 dams they oversee and
maintain. That assumed expenditure
over the coming years bespeaks an
impressive need and a market for
those in the deep foundations field.
Halpin also said 77% of the US levees
exhibit seepage and piping. He also
mentioned regional challenges posed
by Karst formations, the subject of
many presentations at ICOG.
More strikingly, Halpin said the Corps
is “rethinking failure mode analysis.”
Some staff thinks it possible that
overly conservative design require-
ments might have been a factor in
a reported $2 billion in “avoidable”
costs. Cost-effectiveness and risk
management are important issues
currently. The organization, according
to Halpin, is aiming at “Three Rs,”
resilience, robustness and redundancy
in its projects.
ICOG honorees
The “G.R.E.A.T.S.” luncheon was
a highlight of the meeting, at which
ICOG honored “Grouters (dedicated
to) Research, Education, Advance-
ment of Technology and Service.”
This year, all five recipients were
from outside the U.S. Organizing
committee members, Allen Cadden of
Schnabel Engineering, LLC and James
Warner, Consultant, presided over
the ceremony that honored G. Stuart
Littlejohn, U.K.; Freidrich-Karl Ewert,
Germany; Giovanni Lombardi, Swit-
zerland; and Mitssuhiro Shibazaki,
Japan. The latter two were unable to
attend. Sadly, the fifth honoree, A.
Clive Houlsby, Australia, died shortly
after he was singled out for this honor.
A presentation on the life of each of
the G.R.E.A.T.S. was made and those
present offered acceptance speeches
and the two others accepted via video.
The six keynote speakers were also
honored by being chosen for excep-
tional performance and knowledge in
their conference subject area. Their
names and topics follow:
Stephan Jefferis, Environmental
Geotechnics, Ltd,
Cement-Bentonite
Slurry Systems
David Wilson, Gannett Fleming,
Prac-
tice, Perspectives & Trends in U.S.
Rock Grouting
George Burke, Hayward Baker,
State
of the Practice of Jet Grouting
George Filz, Virginia Tech,
Design of
Deep Mixing for Support of Levees
and Floodwalls
Clif Kettle, Bachy Soletanche,
Com-
pensation Grouting, Evolution, Field
of Application and Current State of Art
in UK Practice
Michael Byle, Tetratech EC, Inc., and
James Warner, Consulting Engineer,
Limited Mobility Grouting-Past, Pres-
ent and Future
Encylopedic subject range
The conference tracks were Grouting
and Deep Mixing for Tunneling, High-
ways and Transportation, Structural
Support and Dams, Speakers also
addressed performance, analysis and
design, grouting applications and new
equipment and technologies.
Advances in instrumentation and data
acquisition were noted frequently as
speakers looked back over the years
since 2003, the last ICOG meeting.
Many papers also focused on progress
and research on dealing with Karst
formations. Burke, in his keynote
address on jet grouting, said there
had been a “dramatic” change in data
acquisition, noting the electric cylinder
method as one new method. Speaker
Richard Hanke of Malcolm Drilling
spoke of a “full suite” of electronic
data collection in real time at a Seattle
site. Burke also mentioned data col-
lection was used in the demonstration
project at Tuttle Creek by the Corps
of Engineers. Other speakers alluded
Theresa Rappaport and Organizing Committee – left to right: Theresa
Rappaport, Justice Maswoswe, Jim Warner, Paolo Gazzarrini, Larry Johnsen,
Mike Byle, Donald Bruce, Allen Cadden and Steve Maranowski.
