2018 Paper Competition Winners DFI and the DFI Educational Trust annually hold a Young Professor Paper Competition and a Student Paper Competition as a means to bridge the gap among practice, studies and research. For both competitions, the topics and content of the papers must be germane to the design and construction of deep foundations and excavation systems. To qualify, the young professor must be a full- time, entry-level faculty member of an accredited college or university, who is engaged in teaching and/or research in any of the professional fields including engineering, construction or geological sciences. For students, eligible participants must be enrolled in an accredited college or university in an undergraduate or graduate engineering or construction program. Young Professor Paper Competition The 2018 Young Professor Paper Competition winner is Alessandro F. Rotta Loria, Ph.D. , P.E. , post -doctoral researcher, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appointed assistant professor, Northwestern University, Illinois. In the winning paper, “Performance-based Design of Energy Pile Foundations,” Dr. Rotta Loria describes a theoretical and experimental analysis of the multi- Rotta Loria, professor paper winner physical behavior of energy piles, as well as a performance-based design framework for such foundations. Research has been performed to understand the behavior and to address the geotechnical and structural design of energy piles (i.e., deep foundations that serve as structural supports and geothermal heat exchangers). Knowledge about the response of energy piles subjected to thermal and mechanical loading is accessible. However, this knowledge is fragmented, and no comprehensive performance-based design framework is currently available. The research highlights that thermal loads involve effects that can be neglected in the design of energy piles at ultimate limit states and can be considered relevant only at serviceability limit states. Therefore, the performance-based design of energy piles at ultimate limit states reduces to a conventional pile design process while the design at serviceability limit states must account for a number of proposed verifications. The first runner-up of the Young Professor Paper Competition is Andrew Z. Boeckmann, P.E., research engineer, University of Missouri. Boeckmann’s paper titled, “Estimating Capacity and Reliability of Existing Foundations for Evaluation of Reuse” describes that foundation reuse is a design alternative that has found favor among many owners and engineers as a means for satisfying financial, schedule and various other constraints on superstructure replacement Boeckmann, first runner-up DEEP FOUNDATIONS • NOV/DEC 2018 • 35 projects. Reusing foundations presents several significant design challenges, primarily assessing the condition and capacity of the existing foundation system. Using the results from a field research study of two bridges in Missouri, he presents several techniques for predicting axial capacity of existing foundations, ranging from simply assuming the original design value to performing load tests of the existing foundations, with several methods of intermediate design effort. Student Paper Competition The 2018 Student Paper Competition winner is Alexandre P.R.P. Almeida from Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. The winning paper, “Statistical Evaluation of Design Methods for Micropiles in Ontario Soils,” evaluated the performance of two design methods for micropiles founded in Ontario soils: the modified Federal Highway Administration method and the Bustamante and Doix method. The research analyzed the results from 47 full-scale load tests Almeida, student paper winner on micropile to determine the most suitable design method to predict the geotechnical capacity of a micropile in Ontario soils. Since most of the tests terminated before achieving failure, the
