Some authors recruited additional con- tributors for their sections. Alan Macnab, P.Eng., D.GE. (Canada) was appointed chair. A follow-up meeting was held at the EFFC (European Federation of Foundation Contractors) Conference in Stockholm, Sweden, in May 2014. Preliminary reports were presented at the DFI Annual Confer- ence in Atlanta, Ga., in October 2014. A presentation of the final findings was made at the International Foundations Congress and Equipment Exposition (IFCEE) in San Antonio, Texas, in March 2015. The DFI Journal, Volume 10, Issue 2, includes four papers that represent the findings of the task force. Because of significant overlap in the subject matter the papers for QA/QC and Innovative Tech- nologies and Trends were combined and are presented as one paper. Challenges Faced One of the challenges the task force encountered was defining the state of prac- tice in each region and determining whether it was possible to define a single state of practice for each region. North America, including Central America and the Caribbean Islands, consists of 38 countries, 22.5 million sq km (8.7 million sq mi) and 556 million people. Europe consists of 50 countries, 12.5 million sq km (4.8 million sq mi) and 742 million people. It became apparent that it was unrealistic to expect that practice in either North America or Europe would be consistent, and it was also not possible to accurately define overarching behaviors in such large regions. It was conceded that the task force would compare Canada/U.S. and the EU. The EU consists of 28 countries, 4.3 mil- lion sq km (1.6 million sq mi) and 507 million people. By comparison, Canada and the U.S. appear to be similar, however practices are very regional and diverse; both have weak central governments and many operat ions, regulat ions and practices are performed independently by states or provinces. As such Canada/U.S. combined consist of 60 states/provinces, 19.8 million sq km (7.6 million sq mi) and 352 million people. These are staggering numbers and to describe unique trends or discrete behaviour patterns required some gross generalizations. Alan Macnab, P.Eng., D.GE. The task force knew from the start that the U.S. has the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) publications, which guide transportation sector work, a very large piece of the drilled shaft market, and that the EU has the Eurocode for guidance/regulation in its bored pile market. The group also knew that there was unprecedented entry into each other’s markets from equipment manu- facturers, which should give some clues as to any differences which might exist. The key was to concentrate on these differences, explaining why they existed, and determine if these explanations warranted using the “idea” in other jurisdictions. In order to research the variations in practice in the subject areas, a survey was distributed to members of DFI, DFI Europe, ADSC (International Association of Foundation Drilling) and EFFC. Initial returns were quite low and heavily skewed toward NA. The survey was modified and sent out again. This elicited more EU response, but the results were still heavily dominated by feedback from NA. In order to reconcile this problem, interviews were carried out with select European construction representatives and the task force eventually had sufficient data to proceed. (Top Row L-R) Dr. Michael Arnold, Dr. Dan Brown, P.E., D.GE., Maurice Bottiau, ir, David Coleman, P.E., Ray Fassett (Bottom Row L-R) Bernie Hertlein, FACI, Vince Jue, Dr. Antonio Marinucci, P.E., Arthur Tipter, Dipl. Ing., Gerald Verbeek 104 • DEEP FOUNDATIONS • NOV/DEC 2016
