ISM held its 12th International Workshop on Micropiles in Kraków Poland in June 2014. The workshop was organized and hosted by Titan Polska, and the local organizing leads were Jakub Sierant and Natalia Maca. Dan MacLean, at the time chief operating officer of Con-Tech Systems, served as program chair supported by an international technical committee. This workshop was the second event organized under the ISM-ADSC-DFI cooperative alliance established in 2012.
The workshop featured the 8th Lizzi Lecture, delivered by long-standing ISM member, Nadir Ansari of Isherwood Associates (Canada), who presented “Micropile Life Cycle - Experiences in Mature Markets and Expectations for New Markets.”
Lizzi Scholarship winner, Maciej Szczygielski of AGH University of Science and Technology, presented “Assessment of Soil-Micropile Interface Parameters Using 3D Numerical Modeling.”
The Dr. Fernando Lizzi family attended the workshop to mark the 100th anniversary of the patriarch’s birth. Dr. Lizzi developed the pali radici (root pile) technology, and his son, Professor Fedele Lizzi, addressed the delegation and presented some reflections on the inventor’s personal life.
The workshop hosted the first World Cup of Micropiles competition to select the preeminent micropile project in the world. Four regions of the globe were represented: North America, South and Central America, Europe, and Oceana/Asia. ISM members voted for the winner during the workshop based on the level of innovation, usage in difficult conditions, unique application, and the impact of the project on acceptance of micropiles in the region. Crux Subsurface of Spokane Valley, WA, won the inaugural award for their Sunrise Powerlink project, a 117-mile stretch of helicopter-assisted construction of micropile-supported transmission towers in California.
