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.

Hastings Update and Photo Album

By David Graham, on April 1st, 2011

Well, I, David, have survived my first (and hopefully last) winter in Minnesota. I spent most of January and February observing the installation of the Pier 5 drilled shafts at the new Hastings bridge project in Hastings, Minnesota. In addition to the drilled shafts, there has been a lot activity at Hastings since Aaron last blogged about this project in January. A link to his post is here. All of the ground improvement piles for the column-supported embankment have been installed and approximately 75% of the caps have been poured. The 42-inch piles and pile caps for Piers 8, 9, and 10 are also complete. Piles for the north embankment retaining wall have been installed and construction of the wall has begun. Excavation for the rock bearing spread footings that will support the south land piers is in progress. Work at Piers 6 and 7 and on the north shore are currently on hold as the Mississippi River is experiencing its annual spring flood. The water level is about 14 feet above normal elevation.

I have taken the pictures Paul and I have collected over the last few months and uploaded some of the more interesting ones to a Picasa web album. The pictures are generally in chronological order and cover most of the construction process from November of 2010 right up to the end of March 2011. A link to our our video of a Statnamic load test at Hastings that Aaron blogged about is here.

LRFD Design Procedures Case Histories – Iowa ASCE Geotechnical Conference

By Robert Thompson, on March 24th, 2011

Paul gave a presentation recently at the Iowa ASCE Geotechnical Conference where he discussed two project case histories for LRFD design of bridge foundations. The meeting was held March 3, 2011 in Ames, Iowa. In his presentation, Paul gave an overview of the LRFD design procedure as it applies to foundations, reminding them that LRFD is not difficult and that it provides a logical framework for incorporating reliability into foundation design. Paul talked about our experiences using LRFD for foundation design for two bridges over the Mississippi River: the Hastings Bridge in Hasting Minnesota and the new I-70 bridge in St. Louis, Missouri. Both bridges are currently under construction.

A PDF of his presentation can be found at the link through the image below, or on our Presentations page.

Previous Hastings posts

Previous I-70 posts

Audubon Bridge Closure–The Span is Complete!

By Robert Thompson, on February 1st, 2011

On December 29, 2010, Audubon Bridge Constructors recently “closed” the main span of the John James Audubon Bridge between New Roads and St. Francisville, Louisiana. Watch the video featured at the top of the page at the bridge link to hear about the bridge, including the drilled shaft foundations! For something really fascinating, go to the webcams here and scroll back through the various dates. They have archived images all the way back to start of construction.

Photo: Chris Usery, Figg Bridge Inspectors

The last cables were installed on January 3, 2011 as noted on the project website:

The last two cable stays of the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere were installed on January 3, 2011, five days after the spans were connected. The John James Audubon Bridge, Louisiana’s newest crossing over the Mississippi River, now has all of its 136 cable stays in place.

This bridge will be the longest cable-stayed bridge in North America when it opens later in 2011. Again, from the project web site:

The spans of the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere were connected on December 29, 2010, stretching 1/3 of a mile over the Mississippi River. The John James Audubon Bridge, connecting Pointe Coupee and West Feliciana parishes in Louisiana, is approximately 92% complete. Construction of the spans began from both sides of the 500-foot tall towers earlier this year. Both sides continue to progress at a rapid pace, and now the meeting of the spans has occurred.

Steve Dapp and I had the pleasure of working with many great people during our time on site (much more time for Steve than for me!) during foundation construction. One of them, Chris Ursery of Figg Bridge Inspectors, has been great about providing us with photos now and then to keep us updated of some of the details of the bridge construction. Chris has granted us permission to share a few of his recent photos, which are shown below or can be seen in our web albums here.

Previous post on Audubon Bridge.

DBA On Team for Hurricane Deck Bridge Replacement

By Robert Thompson, on January 19th, 2011

(Image source: LakeExpo.com)

DBA is part of a team led by Parsons Transportation Group that was selected to design the replacement of the Hurricane Deck Bridge over The Lake of the Ozarks in Camden County Missouri. MoDOT has awarded the design contract to Parsons. DBA will be the lead geotechnical engineer with Terracon on the team providing drilling and laboratory services, as well as some foundation engineering support services. Parsons was chosen due to the innovative approach the team proposed that includes reusing the existing piers (from ENR.com):

MoDOT chose Parsons for proposing an innovative approach to construction that involves the use of temporary pier widening and shifting the existing superstructure over. This method will allow traffic to be maintained on the existing bridge while the new bridge is constructed, potentially resulting in significant cost savings.

A little history of the bridge can be found at Go2Lakeofthe Ozarks.com, including how it got its name:

Hurricane Deck Bridge of Ozarks crosses the main channel of the lake of approximately mile marker 35. It carries Missouri highway 5 between Versailles and Camdenton. It was built in 1936 –five years after the lake filled. It was named as Hurricane Deck because it was heard that a tornado struck that area which was locally "Hurricanes". It is a nautical term associated with river steamboats. The Hurricane Deck was the uppermost deck which provides and allows everyone to experience the pleasant breezy place and the passing scenery.

kcICON Project Opens Ahead of Schedule

By Robert Thompson, on January 3rd, 2011

The kcICON project in Kansas City has been completed six months ahead of schedule and within budget with all lanes and ramps being open on December 18th. Demolition has begun on the existing Paseo bridge. You can see some photos of the demolition (like the one in this post – thanks kcICON!) at their Facebook page. It was a great experience for us to have been a part of this project. If you want to see all of our previous posts on this, click here. Other points of interest are linked below.

The Kansas City District of MoDOT

New I-70 Bridge Featured in Foundation Drilling Magazine

By David Graham, on December 10th, 2010

The new I-70 bridge over the Mississippi River near St. Louis, Missouri is quite the project. When completed, it will be the third longest cable-stayed bridge in the United States, with a 1,500-ft main span. Most significantly for the geotechnical community, the bridge made history when one of its 11-ft diameter drilled shafts resisted a world record breaking 36,000 tons (bi-directional) during an O-cell load test. The bridge has already seen press in Civil Engineering Magazine (July 2010, page 30-32), at ENR.com, and in a post by Robert on this blog. Now, an article by DBA’s Paul Axtell is featured in the September/October issue of Foundation Drilling Magazine. The editor summarized the article saying:

The information in the following article is a composite of material that came to Foundation Drilling Magazine from three separate sources. Part I is based on information gleaned from an article that was published on the Associated Press news wire. Part II is excerpted from ENR’s August 18th, E-Newsletter. Part III was provided by Paul Axtell and Dan Brown of ADSC Technical Affiliate company, Dan Brown and Associates. The bridge project is of interest in general. The Osterberg Load Cell test will be of particular interest to professionals in the deep foundation industry, and specifically for those who work in the drilled shaft segment.

Axtell, P.J. (2010). “Mississippi River Bridge Project Includes Record Load Test: A Three Part Story”, Foundation Drilling, Vol. 31, No. 7 September/October 2010.

kcICON Bridge Nears Completion

By Robert Thompson, on November 2nd, 2010

Paul received a few photos of the kcICON bridge that are just too cool not to share. These were sent to him by Massman Construction. These were taken in September of this year. MoDOT’s Flicker album of the dedication ceremony is here. The new bridge was dedicated and partially opened to traffic (southbound) on September 27th. The northbound traffic was shifted to the new structure on October 22nd. All of the bridges and ramps for the project will be opened by the end of the year – 6 months ahead of schedule. Can’t wait to see it after the exisitng bridge is demoloshed, though it is a pretty cool image with the old and new bridges together. Updates for the project are on the project Facebook Page.

Click here for previous posts on kcICON.

DBA on team for New Hastings, MN Bridge

By Robert Thompson, on August 30th, 2010

The Lunda/Ames design-build joint venture (Lunda Construction Company of Black River Falls, Wisconsin and Ames Construction, Inc. of Burnsville, Minnesota) has been awarded a contract to build the new Highway 61 Hastings Bridge over the Mississippi River in Hastings, Minnesota. Parsons Transportation Group is the designer and DBA is performing geotechnical design of the bridge foundations and settlement mitigation as a sub-consultant to PTG.

Here is the existing bridge that is being replaced (viewing from upstream):

In addition to several relatively large approach spans, the new bridge will include a 545ft long free-standing arch main span with four lanes of traffic and a 12 foot wide common use pedestrian/bike path. The new bridge will allow additional parking and an artistic plaza area south of the river. An anti-icing system will be installed to help achieve the 100-year design life.

On the south side of the Mississippi River, the bridge foundations will consist of spread footings bearing on dolostone bedrock. The remaining bridge foundations will utilize 42in diameter pipe piles. Several Statnamic load tests, both axial and lateral, will be performed by our friends at AFT.

Settlement mitigation is required beneath the North Embankment due to several relatively thick and deep strata of compressible fine-grained soils. The embankment will also be heavily instrumented to evaluate performance of the embankment and mitigation technique.

Preliminary work including subsurface investigation has begun. The subsurface investigation is being performed by Braun Intertec under sub-contract to DBA. Test piles will be installed in early September, 2010 with subsequent load testing soon after.

The awarded design-build contract is for $120M. The estimated project completion date is May 13, 2013.

DBA Project Page here.

Mn/DOT Hastings Bridge Project Home Page

Here is a sampling of the local news on the project award:

Hastings Star-Gazette: Many articles, ongoing

9/22 Star Tribune: New Hastings Bridge is on the way

July 1 South Washington County Bulletin: Bridge design chosen: It will be the tied-arch

July 1 Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal: Lunda/Ames team wins $120M Hastings Bridge contract

New Project Summaries Added

By Robert Thompson, on May 28th, 2010

I have added some new project summaries to our Consulting Projects list. I have also revised/updated the individual project pages we have, plus the Consulting Projects and Research Projects pages.

The projects I have added are: