PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Innovation I nnovation starts with a spark. Somebody sees something in a way they haven’t seen it before, or sees a parallel in another venue, and makes a connection. Sometimes the step taken from that connection is small and subtle, sometimes profound. But in each case the state of the practice is taking another step forward. To be innovative requires first the spark, then only a little bit of brains, a lot of borrowing good ideas from someone else, an iron will to work through new and unexplored ways for things to go wrong, and mostly — a lot of hard work to see it through. In this issue of Deep Foundations magazine we are focusing on innovation. Feature articles include: the application of thermal profiling on drilled shafts to evaluate concrete quality and cage alignment; an article describing pushing the envelope on ACIP piles in Florida for capacity, length, and testing methods; an innovative site characterization and evaluation of seismic hazards project in Turkey; the development of Controlled Modulus Columns to support structures on soft ground; and miniJET micropiles — combining two technologies for a solution with improved performance. In each of these cases, the authors describe a project where another step forward has been taken. I hope that reading these articles sparks you to take yet another step or see a parallel opportunity. And the industry keeps moving forward. How is DFI advancing innovation in the deep foundations market? At the February winter planning meeting the trustees voted to fund a total of $100,000 between six projects developed and advanced by our technical committees (see article page 21). These include a synthesis on liquefaction mitigation practice, de v e lopment of s e i smi c reinforcing details for slurry James A. Morrison, P.E. President [email protected] walls, an assessment of load test criteria for ACIP piles, a workshop on comparing drilled shaft techniques between North America and Europe, an update to an existing technique used for analyzing At the February winter planning meeting the trustees voted to fund a total of $100,000 between six projects developed and advanced by our technical committees. Register for OneMine DFI members can access and download over 80,000 articles, technical papers and books from organizations all over the world — at no cost. The web-based document library, which began with the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME), now includes documents from related industry organizations. DFI has added all of its publication documents written before 2010 to the library including conference proceedings papers, technical manuals, reference documents, and Journal papers. To access the resources, simply create a OneMine registration. You will need to select DFI as your society of affiliation, and use your DFI membership number when registering. For additional help with registration, contact OneMine.org at 1-303-948-4248 slopes stabilized with one row of piles, and a joint project with EFFC to develop a carbon calculator focused on deep foundation construction. I commend our technical committees for identifying the efforts and research needs that will help improve deep foundation design and construction in the future. You will be reading about the results of these projects in future issues of this magazine and the DFI Journal. We expect these results will spark one of you to take another innovative step. DFI’s trustees are committed to funding quality research efforts every year to keep the steady flow of new ideas coming, and to carry the message to all DFI members around the globe. These are your DFI dollars at work — every step moves the whole industry one more rung up the ladder. DEEP FOUNDATIONS • MAY/JUNE 2012 • 5
