Dan Brown and Associates, PLLC » Deep Foundations

DBA on team for New Hastings, MN Bridge

Robert Thompson — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:08:39 +0000

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 exisiting 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

South Washington County Bulletin

Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal

Three Updates: World Record O-Cell Load Test in St. Louis, MO

Robert Thompson — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 02:33:01 +0000

Check out the bottom of my post on June 30th World Record O-Cell Load Test for some updates and new links to recent news articles.

Pile Load Tests in New Orleans – Presentation

Robert Thompson — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 05:13:49 +0000

Robert made a presentation at the recent Alabama Section ASCE 2010 Summer Meeting on our participation in some pile load tests on a couple of the storm protection projects in New Orleans (see previous post here). DBA worked for Kiewit Engineering Company (KECo) and the two joint ventures on the projects, providing geotechnical consulting. We are collaborating with KECo on a couple of papers (maybe more) that include the test data. This presentation covered the basics of the test pile programs, highlighted some of the results, discussed the measured setup values for the piles (driven in the soft Louisiana clays), and looked at some comparisons of the dynamic and static load test results to the pile resistance predictions made by DBA during the course of our work. Please note that the Corps of Engineers (and their consultants) were the design engineers. Our work was in support of the contractor joint ventures, especially evaluating pile drivability and installation issues.

Some of the photos included in the presentation were obtained from the public Flickr albums posted by Team New Orleans, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. There are a lot of good photos there of many of the ongoing projects around New Orleans, as well as an album of historical photos.

You can check out several webcams at the West Closure project here.

You can see Robert’s presentation here.

New FHWA Drilled Shaft Manual is Done!

Robert Thompson — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:32:04 +0000

Although I have known for several weeks that the manual was finished (I work for one of the authors, after all!), I was waiting for the FHWA to post the link for the new manual before posting this…and now it is here! My friend, Randy Post, has an outside review (meaning not connected to one of the authors!) over at his blog Geoprac.net. Not only did he get “the scoop” on me, but he covers some of the highlights of the “what’s new” with the new, fully revised manual. The biggest change is completely re-writing the design sections to follow LRFD as well as to update the methods for calculating soil and rock resistance. As Randy also notes, the manual has been given a Geotechnical Engineering Circular (GEC) designation: GEC 10. Make sure and go read his review, as well as check out the other things on his blog (disclosure by Robert: I am an occasional contributor there).

The manual’s authors are three of the country’s top experts in drilled shaft design and construction: our own Dan A. Brown, Ph.D, P.E. , John P. Turner, Ph.D, P.E. of the University of Wyoming, and Raymond J. Castelli, P.E. of Parsons Brinckerhoff. As with any major FHWA publication such as this, there was significant industry involvement in the review process through various technical committees and individuals from ADSC, DFI, and Geo-Institute. A note from Dan:

The completion of this manual is a great relief and satisfaction. Many thanks to John Turner’s hard work and also for Ray Castelli’s diligent work to review and make us better. Special thanks to PB Project Manager Jeremy Hung and our FHWA sponsor Silas Nichols for their dedicated efforts to help get this done, and to all of you who contributed.

Dan and John have been using the material in the NHI course this fiscal year, having done some pilot courses the previous year. Some NHI courses, including the Drilled Shaft course, can be hosted by non-government groups. There are also some public seats available occasionally at DOT hosted courses. The NHI catalog page for this course is here.

Download Drilled Shafts:Construction Procedures and LRFD Design Methods, 2010.

Also linked on our Publications page.

Update (7/12/10): For those that prefer the feel of a printed volume in their hands, the ADSC: The International Association of Foundation Drilling will be the distributor of the printed volume of the manual through their Technical Library. It will be available soon, according to ADSC. We’ll post about it as soon as it is available.

Update 2 (8/19/10): The printed manual is now available.

World Record O-Cell Load Test in St. Louis, MO!

Robert Thompson — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:08:16 +0000

DBA was part of foundation engineering and construction history while participating in a drilled shaft load test for the New I-70 Mississippi River Bridge in St. Louis, Missouri. A new O-cell world record of 36,000 tons (bi-directional) was achieved on the test, besting the former record of just under 32,000 tons set in 2005 in Korea (see here).

The test shaft was built by MTA (a joint venture of Massman/Traylor Brothers/Alberici Constructors) as part of an Alternative Technical Concept (ATC) that MTA submitted in their winning bid. During the bid phase, the owner allowed ATC’s to be submitted by pre-qualified teams. These ATC’s were unique to the team that submitted them (e.g., each team was allowed to submit their own ATC’s if they desired, but the ATC’s were not shared amongst all the teams). DBA worked with MTA to develop an ATC that optimized the drilled shaft foundations shown in the “baseline” drawings provided by the owner. That ATC provided a more economical foundation solution that was accepted, bid, and awarded (note MTA also had the option of bidding the “baseline” drawings as-is). A full-scale load test on a dedicated test shaft using the Osterberg Cell (O-cell) test method was included in the ATC to: 1) prove the design values used for the resistance in the rock socket; and (2) take advantage of higher resistance factors for using a load tests as opposed to only calculations. The baseline drawings did not include a load test.

Loadtest, Inc. performed the load test. The bottom-up static load test applied slightly greater than 36,000 tons (bi-directional) to the shaft resulting in about 1/8in of upward movement of the shaft and about the same magnitude of downward displacement at the base. The rock socket was about 23ft deep and 11ft in diameter in very hard limestone. Four 34in O-cells placed at the base of the shaft were loaded to 150% of their rated capacity to achieve the record load.

UPDATE (8/4/10): The bridge was featured in the July 2010 issue of Civil Engineering magazine from ASCE in the “News” section. Follow the link below and then go to Page 30.

Civil Engineering July 2010

UPDATE (8/17/10): Press Release from MTA (contractor joint venture).

UPDATE (8/18/10): ENR.com Article

New Project Summaries Added

Robert Thompson — Fri, 28 May 2010 22:53:41 +0000

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:

Beck Street Bridge over I-15, Salt Lake City, Utah

Hurricane Protection Projects, New Orleans, Louisiana

I-70 Mississippi River Bridge Test Shaft, St. Louis, Missouri

Mullica River Bridge Test Shaft, Port Republic, New Jersey

Bridge updates – kcICON, Audubon, Beck Street

Robert Thompson — Wed, 26 May 2010 02:20:09 +0000

As geotechnical/foundation engineers, we don’t usually get to see much of what happens on a project after the foundations are completed, especially a project like a large bridge that can take years to complete. Technology such as the Internet, webcams, and digital photography have made it easy for us to see how things are progressing on projects, as well as maybe get images of the completed structure. As I have noted before, some projects are using Twitter and Facebook to keep the public informed on closures, delays or overall project progress as part of good public relations. Her are some updates on a few of our recent projects.

kcICON:

The main span is well underway, including the cables. The kcICON Facebook page is here.

Audubon Bridge:

Check out the webcam. You can download images if you like. YOu can also do a time-lapse from Day 1 of construction.

Beck Street Bridge:

Part of the I-15 Express Link project in Salt Lake City, UT. The photos below I obtained from the photos page on the project web site . We were involved in the design and construction of the foundations for the Beck Street Bridge only.

Geo-Florida 2010 Papers posted

Robert Thompson — Tue, 11 May 2010 16:13:37 +0000

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

Robert Thompson — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:06:06 +0000

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

Robert Thompson — Mon, 10 May 2010 16:14:30 +0000

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.