Get the New FHWA Drilled Shaft Manual
Dan’s Speaking Schedule September 21-23, 2010 - NHI Drilled Shaft Course, Iowa
October 5-6, 2010 - 42nd STGEC, Charleston, West Virginia
October 14-15, 2010 - DFI 35th Conference on Deep Foundations, Hollywood, California
October 19-21, 2010 - - NHI Drilled Shaft Course, Iowa
November 10, 2010 - ADSC Drilled Shaft Seminar, New York, New York
December 1-2, 2010 - TRB 27th Bridge Conference, San Antonio, Texas
Other DBA Team Speaking Appearences 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
Conferences, Meetings, Seminars, Workshops
|
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 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
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
 
By Robert Thompson, on May 28th, 2010
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.
  
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.
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!
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.
By Robert Thompson, on January 18th, 2010
DBA is growing again with the addition of Tim Siegel, P.E. to our team!
Tim has been primarily involved in the analysis and design of geotechnical structures including drilled shafts, cast-in-place piles, micropiles, and earth retention systems. Tim is a Georgia Tech grad (like Dan!) and has worked most of his career since at S&ME and Berkel & Company Contractors, Inc. During his 12 years with S&ME, he advanced from Geotechnical Engineer to Technical Principal and Chief Engineer while developing expertise in construction in karst, seismic design, numerical modeling, and specialty foundations and retaining systems. After leaving S&ME, he was a Senior Geotechnical Engineer with Berkel and was involved in large deep foundation projects all over the United States. While at Berkel, he led the development of the ground improvement technique using Berkel’s ground displacement technology. While at S&ME and then while at Berkel, he taught upper level and graduate level courses while on the faculty of the University of Tennessee. Tim’s resume can be found in the About US section of our site.
We are really glad to have Tim joining us. As you can see by his photo, he has the requisite hair style!
By Robert Thompson, on December 18th, 2009
|
|
|
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.
ADSC Drilled Shaft Foundations Seminar – Mar 19
PDCA 14th Annual International Conference and Expo – May 6-8
TRB 7th International Bridge Conference – Dec 1-2
