2010 | Dan Brown and Associates, PC

Presentations Posted – GeoFlorida and More!

By Robert Thompson, on May 16th, 2010

Tim Siegel’s presentation on plate load testing of grout columns from GeoFlorida 2010 in February has been added to our Presentations Page. I have also added some older presentations from IFCEE09, the 41st STGEC, and other conferences.

Construction Considerations in the Selection and Design of Drilled Shaft Foundations for Bridges – Paul Axtell, P.E. – 11th University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Structural Engineering Conference, April 8, 2010.

Drilled Shaft Performance in Cemented Calcareous Formations in the Southeast US – W. Robert Thompson, III, P.E. – IFCEE09, Orlando, Florida – March 18, 2009.

Case History: Value Engineering of Driven H-Piles for Slope Stability on the Missouri River – W. Robert Thompson, III, P.E. – IFCEE09, Orlando, Florida – March 16, 2009.

LRFD in Practice – A Case Study for Foundation Designers – W. Robert Thompson, III, P.E. and Liz Smith, P.E. (Terracon, Inc.). – 41st STGEC Conference, Wilmington, North Carolina – November 4, 2009.

Professor Ralph Peck Legacy Website Launched

By Robert Thompson, on May 12th, 2010

The Professor Ralph Peck Legacy Website has been launched by Geoengineer.org:

Geoengineer.org is pleased to announce the launch of "Professor Ralph Peck’s Legacy Website". The Website has been developed to celebrate the life and legacy of one of the Heroes of the geotechnical engineering field and honor a distinguished geotechnical engineer for his dedication and contributions to the society as a teacher, author, and engineer. The Website includes a lot of resources such as biographical data, quotes, photos, powerpoints, and even videos of lectures by Professor Peck. The Shamsher Prakash Foundation has generously sponsored this activity. The website has been developed in collaboration with Mrs. Nancy Peck-Young, Prof. Peck’s daughter and was supervised by an international Advisory Committee of distinguished members of our community that had the luxury of knowing Prof. Peck and consists of Prof. Dobry, Prof. Cording, Prof. Prakash and Dr. Lacasse. The content of the website is divided in three parts: "About his life", "Publications" and "Resources". We hope that this resource will be a source of inspiration for the future generations of geotechnical engineers. We also encourage you to provide us with any additional resources/content and we will be glad to include it in the website’s content.

Such a website is a fitting tribute to such an icon in the geotechnical engineering and construction industry. Make sure and check it out. I have added a link on our sidebar in the Geotechnical Resources section.

Geo-Florida 2010 Papers posted

By Robert Thompson, on May 11th, 2010

Papers by Dan, Steve, and Tim that were included in the GeoFlorida 2010 conference have been uploaded to our Publications page. Dan and Steve co-authored a paper on the test program of the base grouted drilled shafts for the Audubon Bridge. Tim co-authored a paper with Willie NeSmith of Berkel and Company Contractors, Inc. on plate load testing of displacement grout columns. Dan was also a co-author with several others on a paper on jet grouting for improved pile lateral capacity.

Dapp, S.D. and Brown, D.A. (2010). “Evaluation of Base Grouted Drilled Shafts at the Audubon Bridge”, GeoFlorida 2010, Advances in Analysis, Modeling and Design, Geotechnical Special Publication No. 199, ASCE, pp1553-1562.

Rollins, K.M., Herbst, M., Adsero, M. and Brown, D.A. (2010) “Jet Grouting and Soil Mixing for Increased Lateral Pile Group Resistance”, GeoFlorida 2010, Advances in Analysis, Modeling and Design, Geotechnical Special Publication No. 199, ASCE, pp1563-1572.

Siegel, T.C. and NeSmith, W.M. (2010). “Large-Scale Plate Load Testing of Ground Improvement Using Displacement Grout Columns”, GeoFlorida 2010, Advances in Analysis, Modeling and Design, Geotechnical Special Publication No. 199, ASCE, pp2398-2405.

Artistic Construction Photo Contest – Volume 1

By Robert Thompson, on May 10th, 2010

With all of us visiting construction projects across the country, occasionally we take a photo that appears to be somewhat “artistic” – maybe the lighting (or lack of), or the aspect. I have assembled a few such photos submitted by DBA engineers in the first installment of the DBA Artistic Construction Photo Contest. Included in this installment are such items as: “Daybreak on Night Shift at JJA” and “Fountain” by S. Dapp, the series “Evolution” by P. Axtell, “GI Rig at Sunset” by T. Siegel, and “Piles in the Mist” by R. Thompson. This first volume has more photos of mine than others, but we’ll work on better balance in future volumes.

Feel free to “vote” for your favorite in the comments. I’ll try to update periodically as we have more “worthy” photos!

Driven Piles for New Orleans Levee Projects – Wrap Up

By Robert Thompson, on May 10th, 2010

Our support of Kiewit Engineering and two Kiewit joint ventures working on the flood control projects around New Orleans has completed. I posted on the support work we provided for the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway – West Closure Project here. The JV for that project is Gulf Intracoastal Constructors (GIC), a joint venture of Kiewit and Traylor Brothers.

Another project we worked on is the Chalmette Levee Loop Improvements LPV-145 project. The joint venture for this project is Chalmette Levee Constructors (CLC), a joint venture of Kiewit, Massman, and Traylor Brothers. Some information about the project can be found at Traylor Brothers website here. This project consists of building over 5 miles of T-wall on the levee. A test pile program with piles at 4 tests sites was completed, including static and dynamic tests on H-piles and open-ended pipe piles. Dynamic, static compression, and static tension tests were performed at 3 of the 4 sites. One site had only dynamic tests during driving. Our newest staff engineer, Aaron Hudson begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting, started his tenure at DBA by heading to New Orleans to help me with our work on this project.

During the test pile program, the project location was accessible only by boat. A temporary bridge has been constructed over Bayou Bienvenue to provide better access. The bridge is a pre-engineered bridge kit similar to the Bailey Bridge sets used by the U.S. Army starting in WWII, and still in use today by the Army and the private sector all over the world. I had some experience as an Army Engineer officer planning and executing the assembly and launch of Bailey Bridges. In the Army labor is plentiful, so there are not near as many cranes and other equipment available when assembling a bridge kit as there are on a modern construction site. Compare this photo from a training exercise near Fort Polk, Louisiana in 1989 (from my Army days) with one in our show below and at the website of the current Bailey Bridge manufacturer.

I have posted some photos from our visits there to our Picassa Albums (linked below). There are pictures of the test piles and the temporary bridge. Also included are some photos I took of the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Barrier project. This project is amazing with 66-inch diameter cylinder piles and 18” pre-stressed concrete piles making up the bulk of the structure. Project photos at the Corps of Engineers site are here.

Update 7/25/10: Webcams of the West Closure Project are here. The Corps’ Team New Orleans has a Flickr page here with lots of great photos.

Tim Siegel to Teach Karst Seminar in Tennessee, awarded Diplomate, Geotechnical Engineering

By Robert Thompson, on May 4th, 2010

Our own Tim Siegel, P.E., D.GE. will be part of the seminar Foundation Design in Karst Terrain in two locations: Johnson City, TN (also known as the Tri-Cities) on June 16th, and in Chattanooga on August 27th. Tim will be instructing on evaluating karst terrain and designing foundations in such terrain. If you are interested in the seminar, information can be found here.

We also want to say Congratulations! to Tim for receiving the specialty certification Diplomate, Geotechnical Engineering (D.GE) from The Academy of Geo-Professionals (AGP). Tim received the designation at the recent Geo-Institute conference Geo-Florida 2010 at West Palm Beach. The excerpt below comes form the AGP web site. Tim is on the second row, far left.

Latest Class of D.GEs Inducted in West Palm Beach, FL

(Back Row, Left to Right: Timothy Siegel, Melvin Esrig, John Wolosick, Thomas Zimmie, Kenneth Stokoe, II, Roberto Sanchez, Marco Boscardin, Allen Cadden, Thomas Witherspoon, Daniel Pradel, Edward Ulrich, Jr., Robert Lukas; Front Row, Left to Right: Peter Nicholson, Derek Cornforth, Don Dotson, Larry Jedele, Delon Hampton, Joram Amir, Anand Puppala, Larry Madrid, Ivan Contreras, Craig Benson, Tuncer Edil)

The Academy of Geo-Professional (AGP), held its latest induction ceremony on February 21st in West Palm Beach, Florida at the GeoFlorida 2010. If you have at least 8 years (post-licensure) in the geotechnical field, a P.E., and a Masters or equivalent, then you may qualify to become a Diplomate, Geotechnical Engineering (D.GE). Above is a picture of the Diplomates who were present to receive their certification plaque and pin.

kcICON Bond Bridge Article in Deep Foundations Magazine

By Robert Thompson, on May 4th, 2010

The Spring 2010 issue of Deep Foundations from the Deep Foundations Institute includes an article by Dan and Paul (with a little help from yours truly!). The article is based on our paper presented by Dan at the 34th DFI Conference on Deep Foundations last October in Kansas City.

The kcICON project continues to roll along. Check out their Facebook page where they have lots of photos and links to their YouTube page. They recently completed the widest bridge deck pour ever for MoDOT.

Go to our Publications page to see the article, or click the image below.

Geo-Florida Presentation by Steve Dapp – Tip-Grouted Drilled Shaft Foundations for the Audubon Bridge

By Robert Thompson, on March 1st, 2010

I have uploaded the presentation Steve gave at Geo-Florida 2010 on February 24th. You can find it on our Presentations page or by clicking the image below. Enjoy!

Audubon Bridge Update – Piers out of the water!

By Robert Thompson, on February 25th, 2010

It has been a little while since we last visited the John James Audubon Bridge site in New roads, Louisiana. My how things have changed! I just have a couple of pictures of the piers from January – it is really looking like a bridge now! For frequent updates, check out the webcam and the photo albums on the project web page. The web cams have a really cool time lapse button that shows you a time lapse loop of the pier from the beginning of construction.

UPDATE (2/28/10) - I added 3 new photos to the slide show that were taken this last week. At that time the piers were at lift 21 and were about elevation +335 feet (the top of the sheet piles at the foundation level are about elevation +50 feet).