by Steven Birdwell
5. September 2010 17:00
This entry addresses a problem that has plagued the Geotechnical Construction Industry for at least 30 years. The root of the problem is a lack of confidence in the products our industry produces. As an example in the 70’s a particular slurry wall contractor consistently produced slurry walls with poor or falsified quality control. The end result was slurry walls that leaked, and as a by-product the slurry trench construction technique and the slurry wall product suffered from a lack of confidence by owners and engineers. The slurry trench technique and slurry walls have sense regained the confidence of owners and engineers, but it took 10 years to repair the damaged caused by a few contractors that cut corners, or ignored QC data.
A similar error has been made as of recent in the soil mixing industry. A few contractors have produced soil stabilization projects with the deep soil mixing technique that have consistently failed to meet soil strength and permeability specifications, and as a result the owners have elected to utilize other construction techniques, and thereby decreased the spend for deep soil mixing.
We as an industry must police ourselves to assure that the products we produce are of the highest quality. Failure to consistently produce a quality product whether it be a slurry wall, deep soil mixing, or jet grouting will decrease the number of engineers specifying our products, and owners selecting our technologies.