TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES MANAGER MARY ELLEN BRUCE Technical Activities Update DFI’s 15 established Technical Committees will hold meetings at the Annual Conference in Atlanta on Tuesday, October 21, 2014. Over 250 members are actively involved in the many and varied committee activities. Committee meetings are open to all conference attendees, and new committee members are always welcome. The new 16th DFI committee, Subsurface Characterization for Deep Foundations, will meet on Wednesday, October 23, to avoid conflicting with other committee meetings and allow all interested parties to attend. DFI’s Working Groups will also meet, and a description of the scopes and plans for their meetings are described below. Energy Foundations Working Group Chair: Tony Amis Geothermal International 11:15 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Wednesday, October 22, 2014 The Energy Foundations Working Group was formed in 2010 in response to a request from professors at Virginia Tech for practical input to their research program on energy foundations. The group members have expanded their roles by contributing field testing sites, equipment, drilling services, materials and instrumentation to this extensive research program as well as exploring the use of energy foundations in the foundation market. The group supported an international workshop titled “Thermoactive Geotechnical Systems for Near-Surface Geothermal Energy” at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland in March 2013. The workshop focused on applications, best practices for design and construction, research needs and market barriers to the sustainable use of energy foundations. Summary reports from the six workshop breakout sessions will be published in the DFI Journal in 2014 (Guest Editors: Guney Olgun, Virginia Tech, and John McCartney, University of Colorado Boulder). The six breakout sessions were: • Identification of best practices, installation, testing and field testing (led by Tony Amis, Geothermal International) • Building codes, green certification, implementation issues and market challenges (led by Kenichi Soga, University of Cambridge) • New technologies and applications, materials and equipment (led by Rolf Katzenbach, Technische Universität Darmstadt) • Issues involved with characterization of thermo-mechanical soil behavior and soil-structure interaction in energy foundations (led by Lyesse Laloui, EPFL) • Validation of design tools (led by Peter Bourne-Webb, Instituto Superior Tecníco, Lisboa) • Environmental aspects and life cycle costs (led by Duncan Nicholson, Ove Arup and Partners Limited) A strategic plan for the group will be discussed at the annual conference meeting. Please attend to learn more about energy foundations and to help define the path forward and increase the use and understanding of geothermal elements and their market potential. State of the Practice of Design and Construction of Drilled Shafts/Bored Piles 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, October 22, 2014 Parallel Session Through the Committee Project Fund, DFI is sponsoring a study to benchmark current global industry design and construction methods, disseminate solutions to common problems, and identify areas for potential improvement for drilled shaft foundations. A 10-member, interdiscipli- nary committee comprising five pairs of experts (each pair including one member from North America and one from Europe) is comparing and contrasting information on the following topics related to drilled shafts/bored piles: Topic 1 – Design: How do national or regional design practices (working stress design, LRFD, lateral and seismic loading, etc.) affect the design and construction of drilled shafts? How do national or regional codes and guidance (U.S. codes: ACI, ICBO, AASHTO, ADSC, DFI, FHWA, etc.) affect the design of drilled shafts? Topic 2 – Construction: How do regional construction techniques affect the final product and what drives the selection of those techniques? (e.g., effect of groundwater, equipment size consider- ations, environmental concerns, etc.) How do national or regional codes and guidance affect the construction of drilled shafts? Topic 3 – Contracting Methods: How do regional methods of contracting affect the final product? (e.g., design-build, bid- bid-build, quality-based selection, associated risk allocation, cost and perfor- mance history of these methods, etc.) DEEP FOUNDATIONS • SEPT/OCT 2014 • 105
