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.

Dan receiving the 2011 DFI Distinguished Service Award

Robert receiving the Special Recognition Award for the Christopher S. Bond Bridge Project

Paul and Erik at the reception before the awards banquet

Dr. Mike Holloway, P.E. comes aboard!

By Robert Thompson, on November 4th, 2011

DBA is pleased to announce that Dr. D. Michael Holloway, P.E. has joined the DBA team. Mike is a recognized expert in driven pile foundation design and dynamic testing, in-situ testing, instrumentation, and earthquake engineering. His over 40 years of foundation and geotechnical engineering experience includes stints at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station (WES) in Vicksburg, MS, and Woodward-Clyde Consultants in Oakland, CA. He founded InsituTech, which specialized in engineering deep foundations and applying insitu soil testing services.

When starting InsituTech, Mike broadened the professional practice beyond “conventional” PDA-related testing and analyses services. Rather than just test and report to satisfy QC requirements during construction, he applied dynamic testing and analyses to enhance foundation design and constructability, as well as to improve on-site troubleshooting of construction problems. The efforts paid off as the firm made significant changes in the way PDA services became integrated into the design/build process on several major marine facilities and bridge projects in the west and in the Pacific.

Mike is a Blue Devil, having earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. at Duke University in North Carolina. Raised in New York, he made his way to California seeking engineering gold soon after his time at WES. He has been based there ever since.

Mike’s presence in California makes DBA a practically coast-to-coast firm (well, at least East Tennessee to California). We at DBA are excited at the expertise Mike adds to our portfolio and look forward to his contributions to the team. Welcome, Mike!

Holloway DBA Announcement (Press Release)

Dr. Steve Dapp…in Taiwan!

By Robert Thompson, on October 11th, 2011

During a recent trip to Taiwan, Steve had the opportunity to participate in a lecture on base grouted drilled shaft foundations. He was invited to speak at a meeting of the Chinese Taipei Geotechnical Society (CTGS), also known as the Taiwan Geotechnical Society (TGS), by Dr. Prof. San-Shyan, Lin, National Taiwan Ocean University (current president of TGS). The meeting was held at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology.

His visit on 21 June 2011 was noted in the August 2011 issue (Volume 5, No. 4, p82) of the ISSMGE Bulletin. During his lecture, Steve talked about the experiences of DBA with base grouting drilled shafts at the Audubon Bridge and the Huey P. Long Bridge on the Mississippi River in Louisiana. Steve said that base grouting has become a very common technology in Taiwan for high rise structures supported on drilled shafts.

The meeting is noted here on the TGS site.

(Source: ISSMGE Bulletin Volume 5, No. 4, p82)

Now Published! NCHRP Synthesis 418–Developing Production Pile Driving Criteria From Test Pile Data

By Robert Thompson, on September 14th, 2011

The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies has published a National Cooperative Highway Research Program synthesis report by Dan and Robert: NCHRP Synthesis 418–Developing Production Pile Driving Criteria From Test Pile Data. This synthesis provides a survey of the current practices used by transportation agencies to develop pile driving criteria, with special attention on the use of test pile data. The report covers issues related to developing driving criteria, the current practices used by the responding agencies, recommended useful practices that were identified, along with descriptions of the practical approach several agencies use to integrate a range of technologies to develop pile driving criteria under typical conditions. The information collected indicates that practices used by transportation agencies to develop pile driving criteria for production pile installation can be described as highly variable in terms of the level and sophistication of the testing performed.

Included in the report are:

Responses from a survey sent to all 50 state departments of transportation plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico (44 of the 52 agencies provided responses).
Interviews performed by telephone or in-person of nine of the responding agencies selected based on the written survey responses.
A comprehensive literature review on the range of practices included in test pile programs and their use in developing production pile driving criteria.
Discussions of the survey results.
Useful practices identified from the surveys.
Identification of research needs for this topic.

To purchase the print version of this report or get a PDF, follow this link to TRB. Click the “View This PDF” to get the PDF.

Please note that if you order the printed version, Appendices B and C (copies of the completed survey forms and interview notes) are available via download only.

Dan To Receive 2011 DFI Distinguished Service Award

By Robert Thompson, on August 31st, 2011

Dan will be honored at the DFI 36th Annual Conference on Deep Foundations in Boston, October 19 to 21. He will receive the award at the annual awards banquet on Thursday, October 20th. From DFI:

The Deep Foundations Institute is pleased to announce Dan Brown, P.E., Ph.D., as the recipient of the DFI 2011 Distinguished Service Award. The award, in its 31st year, honors individuals chosen by their peers for exceptional contributions to DFI and to the industry.

Brown began his career with a B.S. from Georgia Tech, and later received his Ph.D. at the University of Texas, Austin, in only 28 months, while working. He then taught at Auburn University for 22 years before setting up his own consulting firm in Tennessee. The Winter 2011 issue of the DFI magazine included a profile of Brown that chronicled the universal admiration and regard for him within the industry. He was cited by others for his expertise, his intelligence and ability to teach others. Brown and his firm are sought out for advice everywhere.

Follow this link to see the full press release. We’ll post pictures after the ceremony.

Drilled Shaft Article by Dan in Geo-Strata

By David Graham, on July 22nd, 2011

Constructability Considerations When Designing Drilled Shaft Foundations for Bridges

The May/June 2011 issue of ASCE’s Geo-Strata focuses on bridge geotechnics. Dan contributed an article to this issue summarizing key constructability considerations for bridge drilled shaft designers. Specifically, the article focuses on fresh concrete properties and reinforcement design. Discussion of self consolidating concrete (SCC) and column-shaft connections is also included. The article has been added to our publications page and is available through the link above. Additional details related to bridge drilled shaft constructability can be found in the 2010 FHWA Drilled Shaft Manual here.

Dr. John Turner, P.E. joins DBA!

By David Graham, on June 14th, 2011

We are pleased to announce that John P. Turner, Ph.D., P.E., has joined our firm as a Senior Principal. Turner is Professor Emeritus, University of Wyoming, where he spent the past 25 years teaching and conducting research in geotechnical engineering. He has undergraduate degrees in both Geology and Civil Engineering and earned his doctorate in Geotechnical Engineering from Cornell University. John will bring his considerable expertise in design and construction of deep foundations to our practice. He is a co-author of the 2010 FHWA manual “Drilled Shafts: Construction Procedures and LRFD Design Methods” and the author of NCHRP Synthesis 360, “Rock-Socketed Shafts for Highway Structure Foundations”, as well as over 100 technical publications on the topics of deep foundations, earth retention, and landslide stabilization. Early in his career John was an engineering geologist with Herbert and Associates and he maintained his involvement in consulting throughout his academic career. Recent projects include design of rock-socketed drilled shafts for bridges at Pitkins Curve in Big Sur and the Antlers Bridge on I-5 in northern California. John is a recipient of the President’s Award and the Distinguished Service Award from the ADSC: International Association of Foundation Drilling. He has maintained active membership in ASCE for over 30 years and is a past chairman of the Committee on Deep Foundations of the Geo-Institute of ASCE.

Dr. Erik Loehr, P.E. Receives ADSC Award

By Robert Thompson, on June 13th, 2011

Dr. Erik Loehr, P.E. was honored by the ADSC with the ADSC Outstanding Service Award, presented at the President’s Luncheon at their 2011 annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana (Feb 1 –5, 2011). The award recognized Erik’s research in the use of micropiles for slope stabilization and as foundations. From the March/April 2011 edition of Foundation Drilling:

ADSC’s Outstanding Service Award was garnered by Dr. J. Erik Loehr, University of Missouri, in acknowledgment of his research and educational efforts that advance the technical aspects of the drilled foundation and anchored earth retention industries.

Dr. Loehr is currently on the faculty of the University of Missouri and is a consultant with DBA.

Robert Thompson awarded the Diplomate, Geotechnical Engineering (D.GE) certification!

By Aaron Hudson, on April 8th, 2011

We here at DBA would like to say Congratulations! to Robert Thompson for receiving the specialty certification Diplomate, Geotechnical Engineering (D.GE) from The Academy of Geo-Professionals (AGP). Robert received the certification at the recent Geo-Institute’s Annual Conference, GeoFrontiers, in Dallas, Texas. The excerpt below comes from the AGP web site. Robert is on the bottom row, second-to-last on the right.

AGP’s 5th Ceremony in Dallas, TX

AGP’s latest ceremony was held in conjunction with Geo-Institute’s Annual Conference, GeoFrontiers, in Dallas, Texas on March 13th at 7:00 PM Central. The ceremony, which was the Academy’s fifth, was the first held 2011. About 25 Diplomates were in attendance at this event, bringing the total number of Diplomates to over 200!