Soil Reinforcement

The Board of Directors of AMCOL International Corporation has appointed Ryan F. McKendrick to the position of Chief Operating Officer of AMCOL effective 1 January 2010. Mr. McKendrick has been with the company for a total of 25 years. For the last 11 years he has led AMCOL's Environmental segment, including serving as President of CETCO. The Board of Directors of AMCOL has appointed Bob Trauger to replace Ryan as head of AMCOL's Environmental segment and serve as President of CETCO. Mr. Trauger has been with CETCO since 1991, most recently serving as Vice President, Engineering and International Development. Learn more.

Professor Shobha K. Bhatia has been awarded a Chancellor's Citation for Excellence at Syracuse University, where she teaches civil and environmental engineering. Five people were honored during a February 12 awards ceremony. Dr. Bhatia's 20 years of geotechnical and geosynthetic engineering work was recognized for her broad range of professional contributions (including soils characterization in geosynthetic applications, waste containment, and road construction), dedication to research, the fostering of international work and dialogue, and social justice. We congratulate her on this well-deserved honor. Learn more here.;

France-based Cemagref's Hydraulic Structures team has been using a new experimental platform since 2006 to test leak-detection systems in levees. The platform, financed by the Carnot fund, acts as a stimulus for a number of partnership research projects on structure monitoring. The platform was originally used for the Hydrodetect partnership-research project. TenCate helped coordinate the work, which has been assessing the capacity of a geotextile fabric equipped with fiber optic detection technology. Paul Royet of Cemagref writes on the latest experimental installations and how this new technology may be the future of hydraulic structure leak detection systems. Read the article here.

The 9th International Conference on Geosynthetics (9ICG) Brazil - 2010 will provide an opportunity to learn about and discuss highly technical and scientific geosynthetics issues and their solutions. A primary objective of the conference is to present the most recent developments, improvements and new technologies from the international geosynthetics community. The IGS Brasil (Brazilian Association of Geosynthetics) and ABMS (Brazilian Association of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering) will organize the conference under the auspices of the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS) in association with the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) and with the support of the ABINT (Brazilian Association of Nonwoven and Technical Textiles). Read more.

The latest conference update from the Asia Mining Congress (23-27 March 2009, Singapore) is available. The current issue includes information on the latest speakers from mining, manufacturing, governments, and investment groups; workshops; sponsors; and the most current event brochure. Read the newsletter online. Learn more here.;

The Geosynthetic Institute (GSI) has a long and successful record of promoting geosynthetics research in university engineering programs through is GSI Fellowship Awards program. The 2015 – 2016 Fellowship...

SKZ's Geosynthetics Middle East conference series continues with this year's event scheduled to take place in 19–20 November 2012 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The Rocco Forte Hotel Abu Dhabi has been announced as the venue, and once again the conference will be held under the patronage of the Municipality of Abu Dhabi City. The international speakers, forward-looking issues, and strong UAE support have helped establish this event quickly as the leading event on geosynthetics in the Middle East. The call for papers has now been issued. Abstracts are invited through 20 August 2012. Read about the THEMES here.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority has received a $928.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, bringing the total amount of federal and state government money dedicated to high-speed rail projects in the state to more than $6 billion. CHRSA said it has sufficient funding to complete the 130-mile Central Valley line, a project that could create 100,000 jobs over five years. Learn more here.;

Last year Geosynthetica profiled NAUE's rockfall protection wall design in Val d'Isère, a renowned winter sports region in Southeastern France. Now, the company has released video of the construction...

ASTM International has announced the launch of two new peer-reviewed, online-only journals: Advances in Civil Engineering Materials (ACEM) and Materials Performance and Characterization (MPC). ACEM publishes high-quality articles on the properties and performance of materials such as concrete, asphalt, steel, polymers and polymeric composites, and wood for use in pavements, bridges and buildings, and other related applications. MPC seeks articles about both the theoretical and practical aspects of the structure, processing, properties and performance of materials used in mechanical, transportation, aerospace, energy systems and medical devices. Read more.

ASTM Committee D35 on Geosynthetics has announced work item WK36264, "Test Method for Determining Long-Term Connection Strength Displacement (Creep) Between Geosynthetic Reinforcement and Segmental Concrete Units (Modular Concrete Blocks)." This is a performance test used to determine properties for design of retaining wall systems utilizing segmental concrete units and soil reinforcing geosynthetics, either geotextiles or geogrids. The test is performed on a full-scale construction of the connection and may be run in a laboratory or the field. Learn more here.;

As noted in the "SIBUR Expands Production" news item, Russian infrastructure growth offers tremendous opportunity. Karl Mayer and Karl Menzel, a German maker of geosynthetics manufacturing machines, adds more fuel to the fire with its August 2008 news piece on geosynthetics demand in Russia. Learn more here.;

To drive growth for the DuPont™ Typar® physical vapor deposition (PVD) business in Vietnam, DuPont Building Innovations and its strategic customer, DAEHAN i.m., recently organized a seminar, held in Ho Chi Minh City. Seminar attendees included 150 project owners, civil engineers and contractors. Seminar topics included soft-soil improvement techniques, DuPont™ Typar® for PVD filters and DAEHAN i.m.'s PVD products.

The government of India and INDA, a nonwovens industry association, are teaming up to organize nonwovens and geotextile workshops. The aim is to improve the technical textile knowledge base in the country. Learn more here.;

Roughly 1200 meters of geotextile tubes will be installed along Cancun beaches as part of an erosion control protection scheme. Cancun lost much of its beach sand after Hurricane Wilma (October 2005). Restoring sand cost $20 million. The tube reinforcement design will cost roughly $1 million. Cancun is also the site of the 1st Pan American conference, GeoAmericas 2008. Learn more here.;

Late last week, global geosynthetics manufacturer NAUE confirmed that its innovative high-strength geogrid Secugrid® HS has received BBA certification. It’s a significant achievement and an acknowledgement of the high...

Andy Durham of Propex GeoSolutions discusses TRM durability and UV performance in erosion and sediment control materials--part of the company's "Are you sure?" campaign to improve engineering and construction...

During the 10th International Conference on Geosynthetics (10 ICG), the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS) will hold its awards reception, with a few important changes. In the past, the awards have...

The Federation of International Geo-Engineering Societies (FedIGS) is a collaborative endeavor that brings together four major geotechnical societies. FedIGS facilitates interaction between these learned societies’ members, promotes common interests,...

GeoU 2021 will be held 20 - 23 April 2021 in Austin, Texas during what is annually the spring CQA Week events: dirty boots and high-level professional development that...

3M introduces 3M™ Geotextile Seaming Cylinder Spray Adhesive, a new method for seaming geotextile fabrics for uses including, but not limited to, erosion control, soil separation and subgrade stabilization applications. The adhesive is an extremely versatile, fast-tacking construction-grade spray adhesive with a unique wide-web spray pattern, ideal for bonding geotextile fabrics. With this innovative solution, installers of geotextile fabric can see time-savings of more than 56 percent compared to sewing.

InnoTrans 2014 will be held in Berlin, Germany 23 - 26 September 2014 when many of the world's geosynthetics and affiliated geotechnical experts will be attending the 10th International...

One of the world’s most active chapters of the International Geosynthetics Society was created 20 years ago. This year, when IGS Brasil members gather for the chapter’s annual meeting,...

Scott Barker of the Knoxville News Sentinel has published a nice update to the Kingston, Tennessee coal ash spill from December 2008. That reservoir break released 5.4 million cubic yards of contaminated fly ash. Some 25,000 pages of TVA records from the facility have been released and tell an interesting story of a dredge pond suffering continual leaks and breaks for decades. Cleanup may exceed $800 million. Learn more here.;

After a string of product development and research updates, Titan Environmental has announced a new Texas-based office for its US division. Titan Environmental USA has established an office in...