Dr. Dan Brown selected for 2nd Annual Mike O’Neill Lecture

By Robert Thompson, on December 27th, 2006

Dan has been selected to give the 2nd Annual Mike O’Neill Lecture at the CIGMAT 2007 Conference at the University of Houston, Texas. The lecture was instituted in honor and memory of Dr. Mike O’Neill of the University of Houston, one of the “heroes” of deep foundation engineering and research. CIGMAT is the Center for Innovative Grouting Materials and Technology. The 2007 conference will be held March 1st and 2nd, 2007. Dan will deliver the O’Neill Lecture at 1 p.m. on the 2nd. More information on the lecture and the conference will be posted soon at the CIGMAT web site.

Congratulations to Dan for this honor!

Technorati : Deep Foundations, Enginering Research, Geotechnical Engineering

New links to conferences added; Project page updated

By Robert Thompson, on December 26th, 2006

We have added some new features to the links on the left side of our page. One of these is a list of links to some upcoming conferences, meetings, and short courses of interest in the geotechnical engineering / deep foundations field. We also have a list of Dan’s upcoming speaking appearances on the left just below his photo.

I am trying to work on several other things, including our Projects page. We plan to have information and links to ongoing projects we are working on as well as project summaries of completed projects.

Technorati : Deep Foundations, Geotechnical Engineering

Merry Christmas from DBA!!!!

By Robert Thompson, on December 18th, 2006

Merry Christmas from all of us at Dan Brown and Associates!! We all look forward to a fun, exciting, and prosperous New Year!!

Biloxi Bridge project update feeds

By Robert Thompson, on December 14th, 2006

We have added an RSS feed from the Biloxi Bay Bridge web site linked to the construction updates. It will take you directly to the latest construction update on the bridge site. We’ll have feeds to project websites and others of interest at the bottom of the left side bar.

Technorati : Bridge Foundations, Driven Piles, Foundations, Geotechnical Engineering

Drilled Shaft Concrete talk by Dan at Geo-Denver 2007

By Robert Thompson, on December 12th, 2006

Dan is scheduled to present a paper on High Performance Concrete and Drilled Shaft Construction at the annual Geo-Institute meeting Geo-Denver 2007. Dan’s talk is scheduled in the New Technology for Drilled Shaft Construction session on February 19, 2007. Information on the meeting can be found HERE. This annual meeting is always full of great technical programs, a huge exhibit hall with booths of lots of great geo-industry companies and organizations, and other events. It is a must attend for all geotechnical engineers!

Technorati : Concrete, Deep Foundations, Drilled Shafts, Enginering Research, Foundation Construction, Foundations, Geotechnical Engineering, Self-Consolidating Concrete

Trial Drilled Shaft at Audubon Bridge

By Robert Thompson, on November 20th, 2006

I made a visit on Thursday the 16th to the John James Audubon Bridge site on the St. Francisville side (east side) of the river. A trial shaft foundation was being constructed. The contractor had drilled a shaft excavation approximately 30 feet below the ground surface. A complete reinforcing cage was placed in the excavation and concrete was then placed. The purpose of the trial shaft was to give the contractor’s team a practice run at building a shaft on dry land before moving out into the river. The contractor is using a casing oscillator to install the temporary casing at the shaft locations. The oscillator requires a large template frame as you can see in a couple of the photos below.

Of primary interest during the trial shaft installation was the concrete mix design and how it would perform during placement – would it retain its workability, would there be problems with segregation,etc. The exercise went relatively smoothly, providing confidence in the selected methods and installation plan as well as providing opportunities to see what kind of issues or delays may occur during production shaft installation, including scheduling concrete delivery efficiently. The concrete mix appeared to perform as intended. Everyone on the team will evaluate the events of the day and begin planning for the first shaft to be installed at the bridge piers in mid to late December. The first shaft in each pier will be a test shaft that will be tested using an O-Cell load test device.

The bridge site from the east bank looking west.

A view of the template frame with concrete truck in the foreground in front of the concrete pump.

The installation template frame with the casing oscillator (red) on top and the temporary shaft casing in the middle of the frame.

Concrete being placed by tremie inside the shaft.

Technorati : Bridge Foundations, Concrete, Deep Foundations, Drilled Piles, Drilled Shafts, Foundation Construction, Test Shaft

Link to Geotechnical Virtual Library

By Robert Thompson, on November 9th, 2006

We have established a link to another on-line resource for geotechnical engineers. The site includes the Geotechnical Virtual Library, the Electronic Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, and The Internet Geotechnical Engineering Magazine. The Library includes links to research libraries, university libraries, geotechnical consulting firms, and other resources. The Magazine has some interesting areas, including a Geotechnical Hall of Fame.

We plan to add other resource links as we find them or they find us!

Robert

Technorati : Enginering Research, Foundations, Geotechnical Engineering, Technical Journal

2006 Technical Papers

By Robert Thompson, on November 7th, 2006

Two papers from this year have been added. Posts from 2005 are here, 2004 are here, and before 2004 are here.

Brown, D.A., Thompson, W.R., and Nichols, S., 2006. “Performance Specifications for Drilled Piles,” Proc. of 10th International Conference on Deep Foundations, Amsterdam.

Dapp, S., Muchard, M., and Brown, D., 2006. “Experiences with Base Grouted Drilled Shafts in the Southeastern United States,” Proc. of 10th International Conference on Deep Foundations, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Technorati : Bridge Foundations, Continuous Flight Auger Piles, Deep Foundations, Drilled Displacement Piles, Drilled Piles, Drilled Shafts, Foundation Construction, Post-grouted Drilled Shafts, Specifications, Tip-grout

2005 Technical Papers

By Robert Thompson, on November 7th, 2006

These papers from 2005 have been added. Recent posts from 2004 are here. Recent posts from 2006 are here.

Brown, D.A., 2005. “Practical Considerations in the Selection and Use of Continuous Flight Auger and Drilled Displacement Piles,” Geotechnical Special Publication No. 132, ASCE, pp. 1-11.

Brown, D.A. and Schindler, A., 2005. “The Use of Self-Consolidating Concrete for Drilled Shaft Construction: Preliminary Observations from the Lumber River Bridge Field Trials,” Proceedings of the ADSC GEO3 QA/QC Conference, Dallas, TX.

Kitchens, L., Thompson, W.R., and Housley, S.A., 2005. “Case History: Utilizing Load Test Data to Value Engineer Drilled Shaft Foundations,” Proc. of ADSC GEO3 QA/QC Conference, Dallas, TX.

Technorati : Case History, Concrete, Continuous Flight Auger Piles, Deep Foundations, Drilled Displacement Piles, Drilled Shafts, Foundation Construction, Load Test, Self-Consolidating Concrete

2004 Technical Papers posted

By Robert Thompson, on November 7th, 2006

These papers from 2004 have been added to our library. Papers from 2005 are here, 2006 are here.

Brown, D.A., 2004. “Recipe for Success with Drilled Shaft Concrete,” Foundation Drilling Magazine, Nov., pp. 16-24.

Brown, D.A., 2004. “Zen and the Art of Drilled Shaft Construction: The Pursuit of Quality,”Invited keynote lecture and paper, Geotechnical Special Publication No. 124, ASCE, pp. 19-33. Geo-Institute International Conference on Drilled Foundations, Orlando.