GeoCongress 2012–Dan Gives A SOP Lecture; John Turner paper published

By Robert Thompson, on May 8th, 2012

GeoCongress 2012, Oakland, California

In addition to the ADSC EXPO 2012 earlier in March (see post here), the annual Geo-Institute meeting for 2012, GeoCongress 2012 , was held later in the month in Oakland, California. The conference featured a very large technical program with a variety of tracks covering geotechnical engineering topics. There were also the annual named lectures (Terzaghi, Peck, etc.) and other special events. Randy Post wrote about his time at the GeoCongress at his blog, GeoPrac.net. Check out all of his posts on the conference, including photos and video.

A key feature of this congress was the State of the Art (SOA) and State of the Practice (SOP) Lectures given throughout the four days. Thirty prominent engineers were invited to give the SOA/SOP lectures. Dan gave one of the SOP lectures with his highlighting advances in drilled foundation use and selection. His paper, along with all of the other SOA/SOP lectures, is included in GSP No. 226, Geotechnical Engineering State of the Art and Practice, Keynote Lectures from GeoCongress 2012. His presentation is linked on the image below.

During the regular technical sessions, John Turner presented a paper on a recent project case history on rock-socketed drilled shaft foundations used for a bridge . His paper is in the conference proceedings volume (GSP No. 225):

Turner, J.P., Duffy, J.D., Buell, R. and Zheng, X (2012). “Foundations for the Bridge at Pitkins Curve”, GeoCongress 2012 State of the Art and Practice in Geotechnical Engineering, Geotechnical Special Publication No. 225, ASCE, pp414-423.

Papers from ADSC EXPO 2012–Drilled Shafts and Other Drilled Foundations

By Robert Thompson, on May 7th, 2012

ADSC EXPO 2012, San Antonio, Texas

There were several of us presenting at the ADSC EXPO 2012 in mid-March: Dan, Erik, Robert and Tim. The EXPO is always a great event (occurs every 3 years) where equipment manufacturers and dealers bring out all of the big equipment (as Dr. Dave Elton at Auburn has been known to say: “It’s a classic case of big boys and big toys!”). It is a lot of fun to be able to walk through a large show of equipment and tooling that is all clean and painted – you can see what it is all supposed to look like! As an engineer, you can learn a lot about the latest tools, equipment capabilities, and the like from the sales and manufacturing reps. The ADSC always does a great job putting this event on, and this year’s venue a the J.W. Marriott Hill Country Resort outside San Antonio was fantastic.

Dan and Robert both had papers included in the proceedings. Links to the papers are below. Erik and Tim had presentations along with those that Dan and Robert gave on their papers. Links to the presentations are on our Presentations page.

Brown, D.A. (2012). "Factors Affecting the Selection and Use of Drilled Shafts for Transportation Infrastructure Projects", ADSC EXPO 2012 Geo-Construction Conference Proceedings, March 14-17, 2012, San Antonio, TX, pp25-35.

Thompson, W.R. (2012). "ADSC Research Project Update: Rock Sockets in the Southeastern U.S", ADSC EXPO 2012 Geo-Construction Conference Proceedings, March 14-17, 2012, San Antonio, TX, pp103-117.

Audubon Bridge Officially Complete!

By Robert Thompson, on March 9th, 2012

Photo Credit: enr.construction.com

The John James Audubon Bridge between New Roads and St. Francisville, Louisiana was officially completed February 27, 2012. The bridge was opened to traffic in May of last year, but was declared officially completed last month. This bridge has a special spot in the heart of DBA as it was one of the early large bridges we worked on as a company. Steve and Dan poured their energy and expertise into the project starting in spring of 2006, all the way to completion of the last foundations in 2010. Steve spent a good part of his life on site during foundation construction. I spent a fair amount of time there myself helping Steve cover things now and then, including observing the soil borings for the main tower piers during the design.

The JJA (as we like to call it) was the subject of one of my early posts when we started this blog in early 2006. You can scroll through the many posts made during our work on the project here, starting with the soil boring program.

From the press release posted on the TIMED Audubon Bridge site:

Construction on the John James Audubon Bridge has officially come to a close. The new Mississippi River crossing is the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere, with a 1,583’ main span. Located in south-central Louisiana, the Audubon Bridge connects West Feliciana Parish with Pointe Coupee Parish and is the only bridge between Baton Rouge and Natchez, Mississippi. Construction on the $409 million project began in 2006 and continued when the bridge was opened in May 2011 due to high water levels closing the St. Francisville Ferry sooner than expected.

"Although the Audubon Bridge has been open to traffic for nine months, it’s with a great sense of accomplishment that we are announcing the end of construction on this beautiful structure," said Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Sherri H. LeBas, P.E. "The completion of this bridge opens economic development in south-central Louisiana and will be a source of regional, statewide, and national pride."

Dan ran across this blog entry from Angelle Bergeron, a freelance writer in New Orleans writing as the New Orleans correspondent for Engineering News-Record. Check it out.

Personally, I look forward to making a trip through the area and getting to cross this beautiful structure. Hats off to Audubon Bridge Constructors, a joint venture of Flatiron Construction, Granite Construction and Parsons Transportation Group, for a job well done!

Visit to Bond Bridge (kcICON Project) in KC

By Robert Thompson, on February 28th, 2012

I was finally able to make my first visit to the Bond Bridge in Kansas City since it was completed. It is a very beautiful bridge that fits well into the approach to Kansas City from the north. As foundation engineers, we don’t always get a convenient opportunity visit the large bridge structures we work on since our work is usually completed very early in the overall schedule. We are often too involved in other projects by the time a bridge is finished on which we were the foundation/geotechnical engineer. So, it was a personal pleasure to make a visit and drive over the bridge when John Turner and I flew into Kansas City on our way to Topeka to present the NHI Drilled Shaft Course earlier this month. Although it was a cloudy and cold day, I think the few photos I took with my phone (camera battery was dead!) turned out good. Mouse over each for a caption. Enjoy!

Click here for previous posts on this bridge.

Hyperbolic P-Y Model from Lateral Load Tests in Loess Soils

By Robert Thompson, on February 15th, 2012

Another paper featured in the December 2011 issue of the DFI Journal was authored by Steve and Dan, along with Dr. Bob Parsons at the University of Kansas.

Dapp, S.D., Brown, D.A., and Parsons, R.L. (2011). “Hyperbolic P-Y Model for Static and Cyclic Lateral Loading Derived from Full-Scale Lateral Load Tesing in Cemented Loess Soils”, DFI Journal Volume 5, Number 2, December 2011, Deep Foundations Institute, pp35-43.

The paper describes a program of lateral load tests on six drilled shafts installed in a loess deposit at a site in Wyandotte County, Kansas. The lateral load test data, along with site characterization data that included CPT data, were used to develop a hyperbolic model to generate p-y curves for use in lateral load analyses in cemented soils. The model should be applicable to many “c-phi” soils (soils with both a cohesion intercept and a friction angle, such as cemented soils). Degradation of the static soil model to account for cyclic loading effects is included in the new model.

This paper was originally published in the DFI Journal, Vol. 5 No. 2, December 2011, the bi-annual Journal of the Deep Foundations Institute. DFI is an international technical association of firms and individuals involved in the deep foundations and related industry. The DFI Journal is provided to DFI members at no cost electronically or can be purchased in print at www.dfi.org.

This paper is one of several papers and articles published form a series of research projects by KU and the Kansas DOT. Some of the previous work can be found at these links:

Characterization of Loess for Deep Foundations (1/26/10)

Pierson, M., Parsons, R.L., Han, J., Brown, D.A. and Thompson, W.R. (2008). "Capacity of Laterally Loaded Shafts Constructed Behind the Face of a Mechanically Stabilized Earth Block Wall", Report for the Kansas Department of Transportation

Lateral load tests of drilled shafts behind an MSE wall – research with KDOT and KU (12/6/07)

I-70 Mississippi River Bridge–News and Webcams!

By Robert Thompson, on February 13th, 2012

The new I-70 Mississippi River Bridge in St. Louis, Missouri is moving along and getting noticed in the news. Here are a couple of (somewhat) recent articles:

The Republic (Columbus, Indiana) (01/29/2012)

St. Louis Business Journal (01/10/2012)

KMOX CBS (12/28/2011)

The New Mississippi River Bridge Project page maintained by MoDOT has links to all that is happening on the project.

You can get real-time updates of the construction from three web-cams at this link. As I type today, the site is covered in snow. Very beautiful, unless you are trying to build a bridge on time!

The project page also has photo galleries and other neat stuff.

stltoday.com has some albums with good photos, including this one.

Previous posts on this bridge project are here, including the world record O-Cell test!

Photo Credit: MoDOT (http://www.newriverbridge.org/img/galleries/year2012/010612/2012-01-05mrbtowers-jan12-10.JPG)

ADSC SE Chapter Lawrenceville Test Site Report Published

By Robert Thompson, on February 2nd, 2012

The report for the ADSC Southeast Chapter Lawrenceville, Georgia Test Site is complete and published (link below).

This is the second report from their research project on rock-socketed drilled shafts in the Southeast U.S. This report is from the Lawrenceville, Georgia test site where shafts constructed in metamorphic rock of the Piedmont geologic province were load tested using the O-Cell load test device. The report link is below. Additional information about the test site can be found at the Lawrenceville Site Page.

The first site of this project was in Nashville, Tennessee where shafts constructed in limestone were tested. Information on the Nashville Site and the test reports can be found at the Nashville Site Page.

Both reports will be the feature of a paper and presentation by Robert at the 2012 ADSC Expo, March 13-17, in San Antonio, TX. More information about the Expo can be found here.

Thompson, W.R., Brown, D.A., and Hudson, A.B. (2012). “Load Testing of Drilled Shaft Foundations in Piedmont Rock, Lawrenceville, GA, Report for ADSC Southeast Chapter, January, 2012.

I-70 St. Louis Bridge–New Papers by Paul and Dan

By Robert Thompson, on January 24th, 2012

The drilled shaft foundations for the new I-70 Mississippi River Bridge in St. Louis, MO are the subject of two recent papers written by Paul and Dan and published by DFI. Dan presented the paper focusing on the Alternate Technical Concept (ATC) process at the DFI 36th Annual Conference in October. (previous post here). A case history paper by Paul and Dan was published last month in Volume 5, Number 2 of the DFI Journal. Links to the papers are below, as well as on our Publications page. Other posts on this bridge are here.

Brown, D.A., Axtell, P.J., and Kelley, J. (2011). “The Alternate Technical Concept Process for the Foundations at the New Mississippi River Bridge, St. Louis”, Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference on Deep Foundations, 2011, Boston, MA, USA, pp171-177.

This paper was originally published in the Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference on Deep Foundations, the 2011 annual meeting of DFI. Go to www.dfi.org to purchase the procedings or for further information.

Axtell, P.J. and Brown, D.A. (2011). “Case History – Foundations for the New Mississippi River Bridge – St.Louis”, DFI Journal Volume 5, Number 2, December 2011, Deep Foundations Institute, pp3-15.

This paper was originally published in DFI’s bi-annual journal, Volume 5, No. 2 in December 2011. DFI is an international technical association of firms and individuals involved in the deep foundations and related industry. The DFI Journal is a member publication. To join DFI and receive the journal, go to www.dfi.org for further information.

Merry Christmas 2011 and Happy New Year 2012 from DBA!

By Robert Thompson, on December 18th, 2011

DBA at DFI 36th Annual Meeting–Photos and Links

By Robert Thompson, on November 17th, 2011

DFI held its 36th Annual Meeting October 18-21 in Boston, including the annual awards banquet. Dan was honored with the 2011 Distinguished Service Award at the banquet. The Christopher S. Bond Bridge in Kansas City, MO was honored with a Special Recognition award (one of 5 runners-up for the Outstanding Project Award). Photos of DBA folks at the event are posted below. All of the photos from the meeting can be found at this link.

Dan gave a presentation on the Alternate Technical Concept (ATC) that DBA supported for the I-70 Bridge over the Mississippi River in St. Louis, MO. The link to the presentation is below. (Some previous posts here and here and here; posts with links to other presentations here).

PowerPoint Presentation – Alternate Technical Concept: Foundations for the New Mississippi River Bridge, St. Louis – Dan Brown, Ph.D., P.E – DFI 36th Annual Conference, Boston, MA, October 20, 2011.