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!
Tag-Archive for » Drilled Shaft Construction «
March 01st, 2010 | Author: Robert Thompson
Category: Drilled Shafts, Load Testing, Recent DBA News, Site updates
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February 25th, 2010 | Author: Robert Thompson
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).
Category: Drilled Shafts, Site updates
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January 26th, 2010 | Author: Robert Thompson
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 Exchnage
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.
Category: Drilled Shafts, Load Testing, Recent DBA News
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November 30th, 2009 | Author: Robert Thompson
An article on the kcICON bridge project was published in the November 2009 issue of Roads and Bridges magazine. The article was written by Pat Cassity, P.E. of Parsons Transportation Group, Brian Kidwell, P.E. of MoDOT, and Pat Byrne, P.E. of Massman. The on-line version is here. I have also posted a PDF on the kcICON page our Consulting Projects page you can access by clicking the image below.
Category: Drilled Shafts, Miscellaneous, Site updates
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November 09th, 2009 | Author: Robert Thompson
Steve just can’t get enough of the state of Louisiana. Now that the Audubon Bridge foundations are complete, he needed an excuse to get back and found himself in the Crescent City observing production shaft base grouting at the Huey P. Long Bridge project. Here area few more good construction photos to supplement my previous post.
Here is an interesting story in the New Orleans Times-Picayune about the bridge project explaining how they are widening the bridge.
Category: Drilled Shafts
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November 09th, 2009 | Author: Robert Thompson
Dan, Paul and Erik were at the 34th Deep Foundations Institute Annual Conference in Kansas City last month. Dan was one of the keynote speakers where he presented our paper on the drilled shafts for the Missouri River Bridge on the kcICON project in Kansas City. Paul was also able to receive the Special Recognition Award (honorable mention) in the annual project awards for the pile foundations at the Biloxi Bay Bridge project.
More photos from the conference are at this link.
Category: Recent DBA News
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November 03rd, 2009 | Author: Robert Thompson
Yes, you read that right – the last drilled shaft has been installed on the John James Audubon Bridge near New Road, Louisiana. The project has been quite an adventure for us, especially Steve. He spent the most time on the site during shaft excavation, tip grouting, load testing, and even pile driving. Robert got to spend a fair amount of time, too, over the last couple of years. Paul was even lucky enough to make a couple of trips.
The shaft construction was concluded with one last O-cell test on Shaft 3W South. Dan was present for the last load test which went fabulously well.
If you are going to the Geo-Institute congress GeoForida 2010 next February in West Palm Beach, you can hear Steve present the paper he and Dan wrote on the tip grouting and load test program.
The bridge is still under construction, of course, and will be an awesome structure when completed. It was an exciting project for us to be a part of the team. We’ll have a project summary posted in the near future to highlight the details of the foundations. For now, you will have to be satisfied with the slideshows below (in reverse chronological order) from some of our visits this summer and fall.
Load Test at Shaft 3W South – October 2009
Excavation of Shaft 3W South – September 2009
Shaft Grouting and other Construction – June 2009
Shaft Excavation, Pile Driving, and Cofferdams – May 2009
Category: Drilled Shafts, Recent DBA News
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November 03rd, 2009 | Author: Robert Thompson
I have added the paper that we wrote and Dan presented at the Deep Foundations Institute 34th Annual Conference on Deep Foundations that was held in Kansas City, MO late last month. The paper highlights how the design-build process was successful in the design and construction of the large diameter drilled shafts supporting the bridge. We discuss the installation methods used, the load test program, and how we evaluated the durability of the shale rock sockets under drilling fluid.
You can check out the progress of the bridge at the project website.
Category: Drilled Shafts, Recent DBA News, Site updates
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Recent Project Photos – (or) What have we been up to the last few months (Part 1)?…… Drilled Shafts!
October 30th, 2009 | Author: Robert Thompson
If you frequent this blog, you have noticed that posts have been rare the last few months. That is mostly to my being in the field a lot this summer and very busy on lost of projects. While that is good, it meant I did not have time for updates. Below are some slide shows from a few drilled shaft projects we worked on this summer.
Garden State Parkway Mullica River Bridge, New Jersey – Test Shaft Installation
Paul took a trip to lovely New Jersey to observe a large diameter test shaft on the Mullica River Bridge. DBA worked as a consultant for Parsons Brinckerhoff on an 8-foot diameter, 220-foot deep test shaft. CASE was the drilled shaft contractor and Agate was the general contractor. DBA consulted on the design of the test shaft program, as well as the use of Self Consolidating Concrete (SCC).
Drilled Shaft Lateral Load Test Research with the University of Kansas
Paul took a ride out west to Kansas City, Kansas (close to home!) to observe a drilled shaft lateral load test in Wyandotte County, near the Cabela’s store on I-435. The test is part of ongoing research by the University of Kansas for the Kansas DOT. DBA was involved in previous research concerning laterally loaded shafts behind MSE walls (see previous post, click here for more information on the project). This research continues on the same theme of investigating the behavior of laterally loaded shafts socketed into the sedimentary rocks in eastern Kansas. DBA does not have an active role in this project, just an academic interest.
Huey P. Long Bridge Improvements, New Orleans, Louisiana – Test Shaft Installation
The Huey P. Long Bridge in New Orleans (built in the 1930s) is undergoing a major rehab and expansion. The vehicle traffic will increase from 2 9-foot lanes in each direction to 3 11-foot lanes in each direction. This is a very interesting combined highway and railroad bridge with a fascinating history. The bridge is actually a private bridge owned by the New Orleans Public Belt Railway (click the link to see some cool photos from the construction of the bridge in the 1930s). The project website is here.
DBA was consulting with the joint venture building the bridge for the base-grouted drilled shafts under one new pier. A test-shaft was built and tested with O-cells. Robert was on site while they excavated the test shaft. Steve was on site during grouting.
Category: Drilled Shafts, Recent DBA News
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August 10th, 2009 | Author: Robert Thompson
The May 2009 issue of Foundation Drilling had an article by Dan and Robert summarizing the recent research on drilled shafts socketed into rock for the Southeast Chapter of ADSC .
The article has been posted to our Publications Page. The full report is located here, for those looking for a little light reading.
A test site has been selected for Atlanta in the Piedmont formation. Check back here or at the project page for updates as things move forward.
Category: Drilled Shafts, Miscellaneous
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