The 8th ISM Workshop held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, from September 26-30, 2007, will likely be remembered for its superb organization, challenging and controversial field demonstration program, and the influx of new, active members. The event was hosted by Isherwood Associates, Geo-Foundations Contractors, and CON-TECH Systems. The workshop included technical presentations, social gatherings and cultural excursions.

The workshop was held at the 175-year-old Historic Distillery District in downtown Toronto, the former location of the Gooderham and Worts Distillery originally constructed in 1859. Eleven countries were represented: Argentina, Austria, Canada, Finland, Germany, Japan, Portugal, Sweden, U.K., U.S. and Venezuela.

A total of 32 presentations were delivered during the following 8 technical sessions:

The 4th Lizzi Lecture was delivered by Dr. Thomas Herbst, retired from Dywidag Systems International of Germany. Dr. Herbst provided a historic review of 55 years of micropiles, presenting highlights of the evolution of micropiles internationally, and including a comprehensive overview of technical, educational and promotional milestones.

The 3rd Lizzi Scholarship was awarded to Mohamed Elkasagby of the University of Western Ontario in London, ON, Canada. He presented results of his ongoing research on finite element analyses of axially loaded micropiles and a proposal for future research on static and dynamic performance of micropile groups and single micropiles.

The technical presentations were supplemented with a full-scale field demonstration program including real time testing and data acquisition. The project manager for the field demonstration program, Jim Bruce of GeoFoundations Contractors, Canada, presented the goals of the demonstration as:

  1. Demonstrate low-headroom, restricted access piling
  2. Showcase portable test beam (provided by Terrain Geotechnical Consultants, Ltd., U.K.)
  3. Showcase Accel Array instrument (provided by Monir Precision Monitoring, Canada)
  4. Demonstrate “dial-less” gauge data recovery
  5. Demonstrate real time broadcasting of data (provided by Monir Precision Monitoring, Canada)
  6. Explore the buckling phenomenon
  7. ...ignite some healthy debate...?

A geotechnical investigation was conducted, and the boring logs were provided to the contestants. Three micropiles were installed for testing, and six rock anchors were installed as reactions. Each micropile was statically loaded in compression: two buckling tests were performed, and one was tested as a “control” pile. Results of the field demonstration are included in the proceedings.

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