NGI (Norwegian Geotechnical Institute) is a leading international centre for research and consulting in the geosciences. NGI develops optimum solutions for society, and offers expertise on the behaviour of soil, rock and snow and their interaction with the natural and built environment.NGI works within the oil, gas and energy, building and construction, transportation, natural hazards and environment sectors.NGI is a private foundation with office and laboratory in Oslo, branch office in Trondheim and daughter company in Houston, Texas, USA. NGI was awarded Centre of Excellence status in 2002 and leads the International Centre for Geohazards (ICG).
Miscellaneous
Mizzou Memorial Union Gets Lift from TerraThane Geotechnical Foam
Univ. of Missouri’s Historic Memorial Union, Built to Honor WWI Dead, Gets New Life with TerraThane Geotechnical Foam
MOUNT AIRY, NC—The Univ. of Missouri’s iconic Memorial Union, with its Gothic architecture and central bell tower, was built to commemorate the 117 Mizzou alumni who lost their lives in WWI, and has been under silent attack. Like all buildings built atop the ancient dry riverbeds of the tributary valleys of the Missouri River, the soil beneath is a mixture of sand, clay, and fine rock particles and highly susceptible to erosion from water. So, while hundreds of thousands of students walked the hallways of the building, water escaping steam pipes far beneath caused severe drying of the soil and destabilized it enough so that erosion created voids, or cavities in the soil, some as large as four feet. In turn, this caused the concrete slab floors atop the voids to become uneven, and the eventual danger of even greater problems loomed large.
A team of engineers went after the problem, including MU alums, Matt VanderTuig, P.E., of Bartlett & West, Jefferson City, MO, and Mark Whitehead, P.E. with extensive structural design and environmental engineering management experience. They suggested to Chris Hentges, president of SIRCAL Contracting, Jefferson City, the general contractor in charge of the job, that instead of using the older method of mudjacking, a highly involved and intrusive process of drilling large holes in the slabs—sometimes removing the slabs entirely—and pumping “mud”, ultra-heavy Portland cement-based grout, into the void, then leveling the slabs, that the university might better be served by using the newer polyurethane foam system method called “foamjacking” or “polyjacking.”
[Editor] Be sure to click through for the rest of the interesting project from GeoPrac sponsor NCFI Polyurethanes and TerraThane! [/Editor]
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gINT Geoenvironmental and Geotechnical Software
gINT Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Software; user-customizable report generation for borehole and boring logs, well log plotting, and fence diagrams supporting geotechnical cross-sections Visit gINT Geoenvironmental and Geotechnical Software
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URETEK ICR Concrete Lifting and Soil Stabilization
URETEK ICR’s award winning process, The URETEK Method, employs high density special polymers to lift, realign, underseal, and void fill concrete slabs which are resting directly on base soils. Visit URETEK ICR Concrete Lifting and […]