In addition to the ADSC EXPO 2012 earlier in March (see post here), the annual Geo-Institute meeting for 2012, GeoCongress 2012 , was held later in the month in Oakland, California.  The conference featured a very large technical program with a variety of tracks covering geotechnical engineering . . . → Read More: GeoCongress 2012–Dan Gives A SOP Lecture; John Turner paper published]]> GeoCongress 2012, Oakland, California

In addition to the ADSC EXPO 2012 earlier in March (see post here), the annual Geo-Institute meeting for 2012, GeoCongress 2012 , was held later in the month in Oakland, California.  The conference featured a very large technical program with a variety of tracks covering geotechnical engineering topics.  There were also the annual named lectures (Terzaghi, Peck, etc.) and other special events. Randy Post wrote about his time at the GeoCongress at his blog, GeoPrac.net.  Check out all of his posts on the conference, including photos and video.

A key feature of this congress was the State of the Art (SOA) and State of the Practice (SOP) Lectures given throughout the four days.  Thirty prominent engineers were invited to give the SOA/SOP lectures.  Dan gave one of the SOP lectures with his highlighting advances in drilled foundation use and selection. His paper, along with all of the other SOA/SOP lectures, is included in GSP No. 226, Geotechnical Engineering State of the Art and Practice, Keynote Lectures from GeoCongress 2012.  His presentation is linked on the image below.

During the regular technical sessions, John Turner presented a paper on a recent project case history on rock-socketed drilled shaft foundations used for a bridge . His paper is in the conference proceedings volume (GSP No. 225):

Turner, J.P., Duffy, J.D., Buell, R. and Zheng, X (2012). “Foundations for the Bridge at Pitkins Curve”, GeoCongress 2012 State of the Art and Practice in Geotechnical Engineering, Geotechnical Special Publication No. 225, ASCE, pp414-423.

Photo Credit: enr.construction.com

The John James Audubon Bridge between New Roads and St. Francisville, Louisiana was officially completed February 27, 2012.  The bridge was opened to traffic in May of last year, but was declared officially completed last month.  This bridge has a special spot in the heart of DBA as it was . . . → Read More: Audubon Bridge Officially Complete!]]>

Photo Credit: enr.construction.com

The John James Audubon Bridge between New Roads and St. Francisville, Louisiana was officially completed February 27, 2012.  The bridge was opened to traffic in May of last year, but was declared officially completed last month.  This bridge has a special spot in the heart of DBA as it was one of the early large bridges we worked on as a company.  Steve and Dan poured their energy and expertise into the project starting in spring of 2006, all the way to completion of the last foundations in 2010.  Steve spent a good part of his life on site during foundation construction.  I spent a fair amount of time there myself helping Steve cover things now and then, including observing the soil borings for the main tower piers during the design. 

The JJA (as we like to call it) was the subject of one of my early posts when we started this blog in early 2006.  You can scroll through the many posts made during our work on the project here, starting with the soil boring program.

From the press release posted on the TIMED Audubon Bridge site:

Construction on the John James Audubon Bridge has officially come to a close. The new Mississippi River crossing is the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere, with a 1,583’ main span. Located in south-central Louisiana, the Audubon Bridge connects West Feliciana Parish with Pointe Coupee Parish and is the only bridge between Baton Rouge and Natchez, Mississippi. Construction on the $409 million project began in 2006 and continued when the bridge was opened in May 2011 due to high water levels closing the St. Francisville Ferry sooner than expected.

"Although the Audubon Bridge has been open to traffic for nine months, it’s with a great sense of accomplishment that we are announcing the end of construction on this beautiful structure," said Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Sherri H. LeBas, P.E. "The completion of this bridge opens economic development in south-central Louisiana and will be a source of regional, statewide, and national pride."

Dan ran across this blog entry from Angelle Bergeron, a freelance writer in New Orleans writing as the New Orleans correspondent for Engineering News-Record.  Check it out.

Personally, I look forward to making a trip through the area and getting to cross this beautiful structure.  Hats off to Audubon Bridge Constructors, a joint venture of Flatiron Construction, Granite Construction and Parsons Transportation Group, for a job well done!

The new I-70 Mississippi River Bridge in St. Louis, Missouri is moving along and getting noticed in the news.  Here are a couple of (somewhat) recent articles:

The Republic (Columbus, Indiana) (01/29/2012)

St. Louis Business Journal (01/10/2012)

KMOX CBS (12/28/2011)

The New Mississippi River Bridge Project page maintained by MoDOT has links to . . . → Read More: I-70 Mississippi River Bridge–News and Webcams!]]>

The new I-70 Mississippi River Bridge in St. Louis, Missouri is moving along and getting noticed in the news.  Here are a couple of (somewhat) recent articles:

The Republic (Columbus, Indiana) (01/29/2012)

St. Louis Business Journal (01/10/2012)

KMOX CBS (12/28/2011)

The New Mississippi River Bridge Project page maintained by MoDOT has links to all that is happening on the project.

You can get real-time updates of the construction from three web-cams at this link.  As I type today, the site is covered in snow.  Very beautiful, unless you are trying to build a bridge on time!

The project page also has photo galleries and other neat stuff.

stltoday.com has some albums with good photos, including this one.

Previous posts on this bridge project are here, including the world record O-Cell test!

Photo Credit: MoDOT (http://www.newriverbridge.org/img/galleries/year2012/010612/2012-01-05mrbtowers-jan12-10.JPG)

This is the second report from their research project on rock-socketed drilled shafts in the Southeast U.S.  This report is from the Lawrenceville, Georgia test site where shafts constructed in metamorphic rock of the Piedmont geologic . . . → Read More: ADSC SE Chapter Lawrenceville Test Site Report Published]]> The report for the ADSC Southeast Chapter Lawrenceville, Georgia Test Site is complete and published (link below).

This is the second report from their research project on rock-socketed drilled shafts in the Southeast U.S.  This report is from the Lawrenceville, Georgia test site where shafts constructed in metamorphic rock of the Piedmont geologic province were load tested using the O-Cell load test device.  The report link is below.  Additional information about the test site can be found at the Lawrenceville Site Page.

The first site of this project was in Nashville, Tennessee where shafts constructed in limestone were tested.  Information on the Nashville Site and the test reports can be found at the Nashville Site Page.

Both reports will be the feature of a paper and presentation by Robert at the 2012 ADSC Expo, March 13-17, in San Antonio, TX. More information about the Expo can be found here.

Thompson, W.R., Brown, D.A., and Hudson, A.B. (2012). “Load Testing of Drilled Shaft Foundations in Piedmont Rock, Lawrenceville, GA, Report for ADSC Southeast Chapter, January, 2012.

As massive concrete piers rise from the Mississippi river in southeast Minnesota, people have begun to take notice of what will become the longest free-standing tied-arch bridge in North America.  A unique project in several respects, the new Hasting bridge has recently been featured in articles on the websites of ENR . . . → Read More: Hastings Bridge Receives Press as Foundations Near Completion]]>

As massive concrete piers rise from the Mississippi river in southeast Minnesota, people have begun to take notice of what will become the longest free-standing tied-arch bridge in North America.  A unique project in several respects, the new Hasting bridge has recently been featured in articles on the websites of ENR and Roads & Bridges.  The ENR article is a republication of an article that originally appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune highlighting the construction process of the last year, with particular focus on the process of constructing the river piers.  The Roads & Bridges article is a more technically in-depth piece written by the lead bridge engineer Vincent T. Gastoni, P.E., of Parsons Transportation Group.  Both articles discuss some of the many geotechnical changes faced on this project.  This excerpt from Roads & Bridges is a concise description of the pier foundations and some of the reasoning behind their selection:

The main river piers are concrete delta-style frames with the tied-arch superstructure fully framed into the pier through the knuckle connection. The stiffness of the foundation system was then integral to the overall force effects in the structure. The north pier is located in 190 ft of soft soils overlaying rock and supported on unfilled 42-in. driven steel pipe piles. Drilled shafts were investigated early but were not cost-effective, impacted the schedule and presented a risk to the existing bridge due to potential caving effects. Statnamic pile load testing was used to validate the vertical capacity and lateral performance of the 42-in. piles. The south pier footing is close to the rock surface; however, the rock was deeper, more sloped than expected, and the originally planned spread footing was changed to short drilled shafts during the final design. Dan Brown & Associates provided the team with geotechnical analysis and recommendations.

Our Tim Siegel pointed out that the statement “It’s a marvel of engineering that requires ingenious construction techniques, most of which are invisible to the drivers whizzing by overhead,” from the Star Tribune, is an accurate description of how our work as foundation designers and constructors is often viewed.  Although much of the ingenuity and innovation that goes into the geotechnical aspects of projects often goes unnoticed by the general public, it is certainly refreshing to see articles like these.  For us at DBA, it is even more refreshing to see our efforts credited by name as they were in the article by Vince when he wrote, “Dan Brown & Associates provided the team with geotechnical analysis and recommendations.”

For a design-build project with so many different geotechnical components (driven piles, drilled shafts, spread footings, retaining walls, a column-supported embankment, and light weight fill), it is hard to believe that our role as the lead geotechnical engineer is nearing completion just a little over a year after construction began.  At this point, the only foundations that have yet to be constructed are some of the rock bearing spread footings at the south approach.  DBA will also monitor instrumentation installed in the column-supported embankment for the next two years.

Previous blog posts by Aaron and David can be found here:Hastings Bridge Update and Hastings Update and Photo Album.  Additional information can be found on the DBA project page here.

Dan and Steve co-authored an article in the Fall 2011 issue of Deep Foundations (from DFI) that covered the foundations for the recently completed record-setting Audubon Bridge in Louisiana.  Dan and Steve cover not only the shaft testing, design, and construction, but also the unique cofferdam used for the tower foundations.  I . . . → Read More: Audubon Bridge Foundations in Fall 2011 “Deep Foundations”]]>

Dan and Steve co-authored an article in the Fall 2011 issue of Deep Foundations (from DFI) that covered the foundations for the recently completed record-setting Audubon Bridge in Louisiana.  Dan and Steve cover not only the shaft testing, design, and construction, but also the unique cofferdam used for the tower foundations.  I recently highlighted an article by Sereno Brown, P.E. of Flatiron that covered the design and installation of the cofferdam in detail. 

You can receive Deep Foundations every quarter (soon bi-monthly!), as well as the DFI Journal, by joining DFI.  Get information on joining at this link – click on “Membership” at the top banner.

Last year I had a football themed post (college football, in case you were wondering…and that is American football for our fans outside . . . → Read More: Happy Karl Terzaghi’s Birthday 2011!]]> Greetings to all Terzaghi fans!  Yes, it is that time of year again, where our thoughts turn to the anniversary of the birth of one of the greats in our field.

Last year I had a football themed post (college football, in case you were wondering…and that is American football for our fans outside the U.S.) since Terzaghi’s birthday was on a Saturday. Since I am not a big pro football fan, and since I used football last year, I figured I would do something different for this year’s weekend post.

The August 2011 edition of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering ISSMGE Bulletin is headlined with an article on the history of ISSMGE: “THE ISSMGE FROM 1936 TO 2011 A RETROSPECTIVE ON THE OCCASION OF THE 75TH PLATINUM JUBILEE ANNIVERSARY” by Kenji Ishihara and Michele Jamiolkowski. The Bulletin is in two parts at this link. The article is an outstanding work providing an excellent account of the start of ISSMGE as an international conference and its evolution into the ISSMGE we know today.

It should be no surprise that Prof. Terzaghi was very active and one of the key figures in the formation and success of ISSMGE, which began as the International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering (ICSMFE). Many of the giants of soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering on which we base al of our work were instrumental in the start of ICSMFE and its impacts on our profession. As for that time in history (1936) and how it was important to our field:

The time had come to hold a Conference aimed at exchanging and sharing information on Earth and Foundation Engineering.

It was Professor Arthur Casagrande (assistant professor of Harvard University) who sensed the timing, conceived the idea and carried out the herculean task of running the conference all the way through, in his role of Secretary General, with K. Terzaghi (Professor of Technical University of Vienna and visiting Professor of Harvard University) as Chairman. Professor Peck once remarked “Our Society owes an enormous debt to Arthur Casagrande for his conviction that the time was right for the International Conference and to his tremendous efforts to organize it“.

…

Since the first ICMSFE was so successful, it became clear that the Conference should not remain a one-off event but should, instead, be continued within a few years, possibly being held in Holland where earthwork engineering is so crucial to the country.

It was also requested to set up a permanent international organization. Thus it was decided to establish International Committees consisting of National Committees with K. Terzaghi as President and A. Casagrande as Secretary. It was also decided that at the next Conference the International Committees would submit the draft of the Constitution and of the By-laws, which are essential for the Society to become a permanent organization.

There was at that time a widespread awareness that it was the moment to set up a common denominator institution that would group engineers with diverse backgrounds but involved in our discipline.

Portion of group photo from 1st ICSMFE, 1936.  (From ISSMGE Bulletin Vol 5, No 4, August 2011, p3)

Photo of Terzaghi addressing the opening session of the 4th ICSMFE, 1957.  (From ISSMGE Bulletin Vol 5, No 4, August 2011, p7)

And the rest, as the saying goes, is history!

As an editorial note on the first year, Ishihara and Jamiolkowski offer this observation:

It is commonly recognized that K. Terzaghi is the originator of modern soil mechanics and foundation engineering and therefore father of our profession. After tracing the history of development, the writers had a strong belief that this is true. Not only was he always a leading figure in the forefront, but he conveyed strong messages on the role and importance of the soil mechanics and foundation engineering every time he participated in the ICSMFE. We are very much impressed by his enthusiastic and heartfelt message to our community.

No less important was the role played by Arthur Casagrande. He was instrumental in persuading the President of Harvard University to host the conference and carrying out all arrangements for organizing the first International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering. The great success of this conference contributed greatly for establishing the place of soil mechanics in engineering practice throughout the world. He also dedicated himself to the ISSMFE as the 3rd President between the periods of 1961 in Montreal to 1965 in Paris.

There is a saying that for a great religion to be established, there always are two key-role playing giants. For Christianity Jesus Christ is the originator and his disciple Saint Paul was the great evangelist. For Greek philosophy, Socrates was the great philosopher and it was Plato who was the greatest disciple. Terzaghi and Casagrande are considered as a combination in the same context. Without Terzaghi, Casagrande would not have been so well-known. Had there not been Casagrande, the fame of Terzaghi would have developed in a different format.

Now neither I nor the authors are suggesting that soil mechanics is a religion, but their point on the timing and combination of Terzaghi’s and Casagrande’s work was critical to what we see as the field of soil mechanics/geotechnical engineering today. Without these two and others seeing a need, taking charge, and filling that need, we could very well be viewing things from a completely different framework.

So as we reflect on this celebrated day, let’s remember not only Prof. Terzaghi’s great technical achievements, but also his role as a leader (along with many others) shaping our field of practice and our professional societies.