2016 DFI Committee Project Fund – Awards Announced The DFI Committee Project Fund provides financial support for technical committee projects that advance the state of practice and understanding of deep foundations and produce a usable deliverable. Over the past five years (2012 through 2016), the DFI Committee Project Fund has awarded over $527,000 in funding to further committee initiatives. Considerable in- kind contributions and funding from partner organizations are estimated to be more than $1,000,000, increasing the value of the projects to over $1,527,000. For the 2016 awards, DFI received 14 committee-endorsed proposals with a total funding request of $404,900. Dr. Jesús Gómez, P.E., D.GE, from GEI Consultants, chaired the Project Fund Review Commit- tee, a multi-disciplinary and geographically diverse group of 11 active DFI members. Review committee members recused themselves from voting on proposals they were directly involved in preparing. They ranked and recommended proposals for award based on the following criteria, as appropriate to the scope of each project. • Benefits to deep foundations industry (broad impact) • Innovation • Timeliness/relevance/immediacy of impact from results • Quality of proposal (clarity, focus) • Value of deliverable • Probability of achieving goal • Cost/benefit and cost sharing (e.g., matching funding, in-kind contributions, etc.) For 2016, the DFI Board of Trustees awarded a total of $110,000 in funding for the following committee projects: Ti e b a c k s a n d S o i l Na i l i n g Committee – Development of a website to connect researchers to establish a plan for developing standards and specifications for anchored walls in Peru. The work will be performed by Gregorio Villacorta Alegria from Geofundaciones del Perú S.A.C. Deliverables will include a website that will serve as a contact point for researchers to Project Funding Awarded 2012-2016 Tiebacks and Soil Nailing $26,900 Sustainability $45,000 Soil Mixing $29,940 Slurry Wall $20,000 Seismic and Lateral Loads $83,000 Helical Piles and Tiebacks $44,000 Marine Foundations $28,000 Micropile $44,800 Landslides/ Slope Stabilization $58,410 Augered Cast-in- Place Pile $47,000 Drilled Shaft $70,000 Driven Pile $15,000 Ground Improvement $15,000 connect with other global experts on standards and specifications for anchored walls. Funding amount: $500. Aug e r ed Ca s t - in-Pl a c e Pi l e Committee – Implementation of a fully- monitored installation of instrumented ACIP pi les, including Automated Monitoring Equipment, post-installation Thermal Integrity Profiling, compression, tension and lateral load testing (including monitoring of strain gages embedded along the compression pile shaft), and post- testing extraction of an installed pile for visual inspection. The work will be performed by members of the ACIP Pile Committee, and managed by committee chair, Morgan NeSmith, P.E., of Berkel and Company Contractors. Deliverables will include a journal-quality report of the installation and monitoring program, including test results, strain gage interpretation, and inspection and video/ photograph archive of the extracted pile. Funding amount: $30,000. Micropile Committee – A proposed method to assess the capacity of an existing or proposed bonded micropile-to-footing connection. This work follows up research funded and conducted by Schnabel Engineering and several other joint ADSC- DFI Micropile Committee members in 2005, and an intensive research study conducted by Dr. Joao Veludo of the University of Coimbra in Portugal. The current work consists of developing a preliminary, simplified design/verification method for bonded micropile-to-existing- footing connections. The research will be conducted by engineers from GEI Consultants and Schnabel Engineering. Deliverables will include a white paper with preliminary design equations and an example design problem. Funding amount: $29,500. Se i smi c and La t e r a l Lo ads Committee – Development of a design guideline for inelastic behavior of bridge pile foundations under combined effects of liquefaction-induced lateral spreading and superstructure inertia. This research will be conducted by Arash Khosravifar, assistant professor at Portland State University. Deliverables will include a technical report with details of analyses and calibration of FE models and design examples to facilitate implementation of the proposed design guideline by practicing engineers. The technical report will be summarized in a journal-quality technical paper. Funding amount: $30,000. DEEP FOUNDATIONS • MAY/JUNE 2016 • 29
