DFI Announces Winners of 2021 Student Paper Competition

DFI announces the winners of the 2021 Student Paper Competition. 

Osama Drbe, a Ph.D. candidate at Western University London in Ontario, Canada, is the winner of the Student Paper Competition. His paper is titled, “Effect of Negative Skin Friction on Abutment Piles Design.” The paper discusses a comprehensive field monitoring program to evaluate the development of drag forces, which was conducted over four years for three instrumented abutment H-piles as a part of a three-span bridge project. 

Harish Kalauni and Nafis Bin Masud, graduate research assistants at University of Wyoming are the runners up of the Student paper Competition. Their paper, “Improved Estimation of Pile Resistances in Intermediate Geomaterials Using WEAP with LRFD Recommendations,” presents the results of a study to recommend Wave Equation Analysis Program (WEAP) procedures and the Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) for piles driven in soil-based Intermediate Geomaterials (IGMs). 

The 2021 winner, Osama Drbe, is presenting his paper on Wednesday, Oct. 13, during DFI’s 46th DFI Annual Conference on Deep Foundations being held October 12-15 in Las Vegas. 

DFI and the DFI Educational Trust annually hold the Student Paper Competition as a means to help bridge the gap among practice, studies and research. The 2021 winner receives a $1,000 travel stipend plus a free conference registration, a library of up to 20 printed DFI Publications and a complimentary two-year DFI Individual Membership. The runners up also receive conference registration, publications and two-year membership.