Microtunneling Short Course Held at School of Mines

The Colorado School of Mines hosted the annual Microtunneling Short Course Feb. 12-14 in Golden, Colo. Levent Ozdemir, a consultant and professor emeritus at the school, and Tim Cross, Microtunneling Inc., were again the co-directors of the course.

Preceding the course was a one-day Pilot Tube Microtunneling seminar on Feb. 11. The seminar included equipment presentations at the Earth Mechanics Institute laboratory on the Mines campus. Key presenters that day included Dave Crandall, Icon Equipment, Troy Stokes, Akkerman Inc., Dave Gill, No-Dig clay pipe, and Brian Asbury, Earth Mechanics Institute.  

The Microtunneling Short Course itself covered everything from engineering for a microtunneling project all the way through actual construction issues and case studies. Glenn Boyce, Jacobs Associates, was again on hand to talk about shaft construction. Bob Goodfellow, Aldea Services Inc., presented production and cutting tools, Tom Rosenberg, Roetzel & Andress, discussed litigation issues, and Gerhard Lang, Herrenknecht, talked about mechanized trenchless installations for small diameters. These were just a sampling of the numerous presenters and topics. Representatives were also on hand from Rasa Corp. from Japan to discuss gyro navigation.

The annual banquet included a guess speaker presentation by Rob Tumbleson of Akkermann and an Engineering Achievement Award ceremony presented to James Kwong, Yogi Kwong, based in Hawaii.
More than 120 participants were on hand, including representation from Chili, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan.

During the course, Coss also held a meeting of the North American Microtunneling Association. This contractor group was formed in 2012 and is focused on the contractor issues in microtunneling projects.  
Plans are under way for the 20th annual course at the School of Mines. Dates will be announced in the near future.