Hillsborough County Florida is using a mix of expanding polyurethane foam and conventional cement grout as a more cost effective means of filling sinkholes. Officials say the mix uses 30 to 40% less grout adding up to a 30% cost savings. The article in the Tampa Tribune did not indicate the contractor or product name that they are using but apparently several agencies in California and other states are using the same material. Story via ASCE SmartBrief.
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NCFI Polyurethanes and the Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Business
NCFI Polyurethanes’ TerraThane Product Line Quickly and Quietly Improving Bottom Line for North American Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Businesses
MOUNT AIRY, NC—The distinctly American company, NCFI Polyurethanes, is known for pioneering innovative, improved, and unique uses for one of their main product offerings: polyurethane foam. Since the company’s scientists and engineers began formulating polyurethane foam back in 1967, other chemical systems companies have been saying, “wonder what they’ll come up with next?” So, it was really more of a “holy cow” moment in the 1990s when NCFI began formulating foam systems for geotechnical uses: highway and roadway repair, bridge approach repair, concrete lifting, leveling and void fill. And it’s no surprise that like all NCFI product lines, TerraThane geotechnical foam is quietly changing the way entire industries work for the better.
[Editor] Read more about the many applications of GeoPrac.net sponsor NCFI’s TerraThane in Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental projects! [/Editor]

Polyurethane Used in Marcellus Shale Region Pipeline
Pipeline Contractor Uses Advanced Technology Product in Challenging Marcellus Shale Region: Saves Money, Reduces Labor Costs and Erosion, and Protects Pipeline
MOUNT AIRY, NC—As the largest consumers of world energy, the U.S. is counting on natural gas to play a greater role in our energy mix. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts U.S. demand to increase 14 percent from 2008 to 2035 with heavy growth in the industrial and utility sectors, which means infrastructure for extracting, transporting, and storing gas is increasingly vital.
Companies like Canada’s Talisman Energy and it’s U.S. partners, are racing to build that infrastructure by putting down and protecting essential pipeline in rough, rural areas like the Marcellus Shale region of northeastern PA where severe climates can be challenging and requires new technologies like TerraThane polyurethane foam systems.
[Editor] Click through for the rest of this press release from NCFI [/Editor]

Grain Bin Settlement Problems Common to Concrete Foundations Solved with NCFI’s Geotechnical Polyurethane Foam Technology
New Solution Saves Money and Time Preventing Loss of Grain and Equipment Damage
MOUNT AIRY, NC—Soil consolidation and settlement happens. It’s a fact of farm life. Secondary consolidation slowly forces water out of the spaces between soil particles. As this happens, soil particles move close together and settling occurs. Floors drop and become uneven. Newer grain silos and bins are using concrete floors instead of metal, and as secondary consolidation occurs beneath them, depressed or “settled” areas, form within the bin. Grain accumulates in the depressed areas, but cannot be retrieved by the bin sweeper. In fact, the sweeper, a kind of auger that transports grain up from the floor, can become damaged from prolonged exposure to the uneven floor.
This is exactly what Kirk Roberts of CJGeo, a Williamsburg, Virginia-based commercial foundation repair and geotechnical contractor, found when he got the job to repair the foundation of a massive 106-foot diameter grain bin at a poultry processing facility on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. “Once they removed the hundreds of thousands of bushels of grain, we found the floor had dropped some three inches in one section of the bin leaving a large pocket of grain out of reach of the bin sweeper.”
[Editor] Read on for the rest of this press release from GeoPrac sponsor NCFI Polyurethanes. [/Editor]