Articles

Technical Sessions - January 2019

MORNING SESSION @ 11:00 AM

Topic: Innovative instrumentation for construction control

Speakers: Paul Thurlow
Paul has had 33 years of broad geotechnical, instrumentation and monitoring experience as a contractor.

Working on compensation grouting projects for tunnel projects in London in the early 90’s he developed, with others, innovative methods of viewing monitoring, construction and grouting data logically. The site team won the GTM Innovation Award for the use of three dimensional modelling of grouting and instrumentation data.

Paul was settlement control manager for the Copenhagen Metro Construction Group for three years. During that time the site team furthered the observational method of monitoring for Tunnelling and large station boxes, over a 16 mile site.

Paul managed the instrument and monitoring subcontract package for the Western Tunnel Drive on Crossrail and three other instrumentation packages for tunnel and construction in London . The instrumentation package was seen as one of the largest ever let.

His latest quest is to provide real-time instrumentation data to designers in a format that is beneficial to the dynamics of site activities and to provide value engineering opportunities. This has resulted in great success in London and the US to date.

The talk will centre on the use of new innovative instrumentation and data for construction control, safety and value engineering. It will present the large range of methods available to Engineers in this field with proven case studies.

Paul presented the 40^th Martin S. Kapp Memorial Lecture at the ASCE New York in 2015 and has continuously presented at ASCE events across the US. He has published over 24 papers on a diverse range of geotechnical processes and instrumentation and has won three innovation awards related to value engineering in his career.

AFTERNOON TECHNICAL SESSION @ 1:10 PM

Topic: Lessons Learned from VDOT Accelerated Bridge Construction Project

Speaker: Jorge M. Suarez, P.E.

Jorge M. Suarez, P.E. is a structural engineer with Michael Baker International.  Mr. Suarez graduated from Manhattan College in New York with a Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering degree in 1977.  He has over 40 years of experience in the design and construction of numerous steel and specialized prestressed/post-tensioned concrete structures.  Types of structures include concrete segmental bridges, cable stayed bridges, arch bridges, accelerated bridge construction, bridge rehabilitation, and tieback anchored walls. Mr. Suarez is presently a Vice President / Director of Structural Engineering in the Michael Baker Dallas Office and has been involved in various transportation projects throughout the United States. He is a registered Professional Engineer in 16 states.