Drilled Shaft Construction | Dan Brown and Associates, PLLC

Tim Siegel (Sept 30-Oct 1, 2010): North Carolina ASCE Section Annual Meeting, Asheville, NC

Robert Thompson (October 5-6, 2010):42nd STGEC, Charleston, West Virginia

Tim Siegel (October 29, 2010): Deep Foundation Design - Axial Capacity, Settlement, and Lateral Resistance, Norfolk, Virginia

Tim Siegel (December 16, 2010): Shallow Foundation Design, Atlanta, Georgia

Steve Dapp (January 11, 2011): 2011 Louisiana Transportation Conference, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

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

By Robert Thompson, on August 18th, 2010

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.

New FHWA Drilled Shaft Manual is Done!

By Robert Thompson, on July 7th, 2010

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!

By Robert Thompson, on June 30th, 2010

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

Bridge updates – kcICON, Audubon, Beck Street

By Robert Thompson, on May 25th, 2010

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

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!

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).

DBA on successful St. Louis Bridge team

By Robert Thompson, on January 26th, 2010

DBA is on the successful team that was awarded the contract for the new Mississippi River Bridge in St. Louis, Missouri. The project is a joint project of MoDOT/IDOT with MoDOT being the lead agency. HNTB is the lead bridge designer for the new cable-stayed bridge carrying I-70 over the river. The bridge is one part of a larger project that also includes the Missouri North I-70 Interchange, the Illinois I-70 Connection, and the Illinois Tri-level Exchange.

From the project web site:

The $640 million Mississippi River Bridge project is proceeding through design, with construction scheduled to start in early 2010. The new Mississippi River Bridge is the first bridge built connecting downtown St. Louis and southwestern Illinois in more than 40 years. Currently, the only urban interstate bridge between Illinois and Missouri is the Poplar Street Bridge, known locally as the PSB. The PSB is one of two bridges in the United States that carry three interstates. By relocating one interstate (I-70) from the Poplar Street Bridge to the new Mississippi River Bridge, drivers will experience less congestion, fewer crashes and less unnecessary fuel use.

The new Mississippi River Bridge will be a 1,500 foot cable-stayed bridge across the Mississippi River between Metro East and St. Louis, Missouri. The bridge is two lanes in each direction, but is wide enough to be restriped for three lanes in each direction if traffic volumes warrant and additional funding is secured. In addition, the bridge project includes approaches on the Illinois and Missouri sides to get traffic to the bridge.

The wining contractor team is Massman/Traylor Brothers/Alberici Constructors. DBA’s role was to help prepare an alternate concept for the drilled shaft foundation design which will include load test measurements. We anticipate construction to begin in March with load test shaft.

An overview of the bridge is here. The press release for the award of the main bridge is here.