Pittsburgh, PA:   Nicholson Construction Company has acquired the capital stock of Terra Drilling Company Inc., a geotechnical contractor headquartered in Hudson, MA.

The acquisition strengthens Nicholson’s position in the New England market, where Terra Drilling has completed hundreds of piling, earth retention, and grouting projects since it was founded in 1984. [Editor] Click through for the rest of the press release. [/Editor]  

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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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U.S. Forestry Service Saves Thousands with Use of TerraThane Geotechnical Foam by NCFI Polyurethanes at Seneca Rocks Discovery Center

MOUNT AIRY, NC— Seneca Rocks Discovery Center, the visitor’s center for the eastern U.S.’s most popular rock-climbing destination located in Pendleton County, WV, had a growing problem common to concrete slab foundations: erosion of the soil beneath the slabs created voids that left areas of the center with uneven spots and settled anywhere from one-to three inches. That led to cracks in interior walls, uneven floors, and trip hazards for the thousands of visitors to the area’s most popular scenic attraction. Seneca Rocks is a striking 900 ft peak that features over 375 mapped climbing routes varying in degree of difficulty from easier 5.0 to the hardest 5.13, and attracts climbers from around the world.

[Editor] Click through to find out how geotechnical foam manufactured by GeoPrac.net’s sponsor, NCFI Polyurethanes, was used to repair this important structure! [/Editor]

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