A long career with grouting commenced in 1954, after qualifying as a Civil Engineer in 1952. This grouting was
initially in the construction of Warragamba Dam, the highest concrete gravity dam in the Southern Hemisphere at
the time. Five years there involved all the types of engineering grouting.
An Australian, living in Sydney, I moved on to the grouting of other dams in my home State and then interstate and overseas. On some, every aspect of the grouting was handled personally; on others advice or evaluation was provided.
Interesting problems were frequently met; derivation of suitable designs and possible adaption of them to suit geological disclosures presented challenges at times. Some tricky or delicate situations have seen me personally operating the control valves.
Over the years I've lost count of the number of dam grouting jobs worked on to various extents - it exceeds 50 worldwide.
Other activities have included heading the Dam Safety Group responsible for a number of large dams, for many of which I had done the grouting years before. This unique situation enabled comparative assessment of differing grouting methods in terms of their long-term efficacy. Some early methods did not prove durable in the long run, as described in the Guide.
I had the honour of being the Keynote Speaker at the initial Conference on Grouting in Geotechnical Engineering held in 1982 in New Orleans; this was one of a number of activities overseas. Of these, the principal one was speaking at the Short Course in Grouting organised initially by the University of Missouri, Rolla, and then by the University of Florida. This was a 5-day annual training course at which I initially spoke in 1981 and then did so for the next 15 years until 'advanced maturity' (i.e. old age) intervened and made the long plane flights from Australia too arduous. This Course was held in Iceland on one occasion; photos from there, and from elsewhere, are included in these programs.
Writing the Guide and these programs have been retirement projects. After many years of active involvement in every aspect of this sort of grouting (and other sorts too), I have enjoyed documenting this accumulated experience. A lot of it had not been publically available before. So a full treatment of rock grouting is provided. Hopefully, this will contribute to the improvement of the quality of grouting generally; such improvement is needed on some of the jobs I have seen and heard about, regrettably. These days it is no longer convincing for members of the "black magic" fraternity to try to excuse shoddy grouting with a cloak of mystery. All is revealed!
I hope you find these programs even more helpful than the book. Steady book sales over the years since its publication would seem to indicate its usefulness.
Clive Houlsby