Category Archives: Site updates

DBA Technology Update: We’re on LinkedIn!

Yes, technology fans, DBA is at it again.  We are doing all we can to keep up with the ever changing world of social networks, business networks, and communicating via electronic media, we are even using my csgo boosting dot com to bring our business game up.  To that end, DBA has a company page on LinkedIn. If you want to see the new technology out there and all the news, then check out www.maxishare.net.

We still have a bit to do to complete our profiles, both corporately and individually, but we’ll get there, we recently read the best wireless router reviews and we think we will be doing an upgrade pretty soon.  To help all of you media-savy folks, we have placed a LinkedIn button with all of the other social media icons at the top of our right sidebars.  We are looking forward to getting connected!

Pile Load Tests in New Orleans – Presentation

Thompson NO Piles - AL ASCE Summer 2010 - 100723 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.

 

UPDATE (11/1/10): I have replaced this presentation with a similar one presented at the STGEC 2010 conference in October.  The link now directs to the more recent presentation.

New FHWA Drilled Shaft Manual is Done!

FHWA GEC 10 DrilledShaftsAlthough 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.

New Project Summaries Added

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:

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

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Hurricane Protection Projects, New Orleans, Louisiana

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

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Mullica River Bridge Test Shaft, Port Republic, New Jersey

Geo-Florida 2010 Papers posted

geoflorida2010 logo

 

Audubon graph-GeoFlorida-Dapp

 

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

Old School (HPL) - R. Thompson

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

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.

 

kcICON DF mag article

Audubon Bridge Update – Piers out of the water!

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).