The results are in. Data from instruments installed within a big New Orleans levee has allowed the contractors to exceed ambitious schedule-compression goals. The team successfully employed a novel design based on miles of wick drains and geotextile fabrics. The system is achieving soil consolidation and strengthening faster than predicted.
“We're comparing theory to reality in performance,” says Richard Varuso, deputy chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' geotechnical branch in New Orleans. “Whenever you validate theory versus performance, the engineering community learns something.”