Category Archives: Bridge Foundations

Bridge Foundations, Drilled Shafts, Foundation Testing

Project Update–New River Bridge (I-70), St. Louis, MO

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Photo Credit: Missouri Department of Transportation

I and my fellow bloggers here at DBA (David Graham and Aaron Hudson) try to keep up with the various projects under construction that we had a part of.  Sometimes it is hard to do once we have left the site after foundations are complete.  Modern information technology makes it much easier, especially since most large infrastructure projects have a significant public outreach effort, either by the project design/build team, or the owning agency.

One such project, the New Mississippi River Bridge (I-70 Bridge) in St. Louis, MO, is really coming along.  If work didn’t get in the way, I could spend a lot of time just browsing project photo galleries, or looking through the project cams.

(Previous posts)

Bridge Foundations, Drilled Shafts, Driven Piles, Foundation Design

New Pictures of Hastings Bridge Added to Our Picasa Web Album

Some new pictures of the Hastings bridge project in Hastings, Minnesota have been added to our Picasa Web Album: Hastings Bridge Construction.  The  pictures were taken by myself, David Graham, who has been in the area working on a load test program for a new bridge crossing the St. Croix River near Stillwater, Minnesota, and Griff Wigley, our blog coach who lives nearby in Northfield, Minnesota.  The pictures show some of the recently poured deck sections, the completed piers, and the main span arch construction.  Once completed, the main span arch will be moved onto barges, floated downstream, and lifted into place in one piece.  We have chronicled this interesting and successful project in several previous blog posts that can be found here.

Bridge Foundations, Foundation Design

TRB Report: Scour at Bridge Foundation on Rock

TRB has released a new synthesis report covering scour of bridge foundations.  Since this is an issue we are involved in on a lot of our big bridge projects, I felt it appropriate to share and help spread the word (Disclosure:  I have not read the report yet – but plan to soon).  ON large bridge projects we are often on the same team as Ayres Associates, Inc. , the firm of one of the three authors, Paul E. Clopper.

I found out about it from our friend Randy Post of Geoprac.net, so hat tip (h/t) to Randy:

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 717: Scour at Bridge Foundations on Rock presents a methodology for estimating the time rate of scour and the design scour depth for a bridge founded on rock. The report also includes design and construction guidelines for application of the methodology.

Check out Randy’s site – he does a great job keeping up with all sorts of things related to geo-engineering.

Go here to get the report (download PDF or purchase printed copy)

Bridge Foundations, Drilled Shafts, Driven Piles, Foundation Design

Girders go in at Hastings

photo by Jim Adams of the Minneapolis Star Tribune

Massive prestressed concrete girders, some of them setting a record for the longest concrete girders used on a Minnesota bridge, have been set at the New Hastings Bridge, currently under construction in Hastings, Minnesota.  The largest girders are 174 feet long, 8 feet tall, and weigh 108 tons!  There is a video of one of these huge beams being delivered on a 16 axle truck, below.  An article from the December 2011 issue of Concrete Products magazine about the girders can be found here.  To date, all of the girders between the north abutment and main span have been placed.  Crews are preparing piers 5 and 6 for the main span steel arches, which are scheduled to be floated in by barge and lifted into place late this year.  MnDOT has two web cams where  the bridge construction and the arch construction can be viewed. The Minneapolis Star Tribune has also been following the construction.  Their latest article, which hails the bridge as “a monumental marvel,” can be found here.

Click here for more information on our website about the New Hastings Bridge

Click here for MnDOT’s project page

Bridge Foundations, Drilled Piles, Drilled Shafts, Foundation Design, Micropiles, Slope Stability

GeoCongress 2012–Dan Gives A SOP Lecture; John Turner paper published

GeoCongress 2012, Oakland, California

GeoCongress 2012 Proceedings

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.

Pages from DB drilled foundations 2012 Oakland GI [Compatibility Mode]

 

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.

Bridge Foundations, Drilled Shafts, Foundation Design, Micropiles

Papers from ADSC EXPO 2012–Drilled Shafts and Other Drilled Foundations

ADSC EXPO 2012, San Antonio, Texas

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There were several of us presenting at the ADSC EXPO 2012 in mid-March: Dan, Erik, Robert and Tim. The EXPO is always a great event (occurs every 3 years) where equipment manufacturers and dealers bring out all of the big equipment (as Dr. Dave Elton at Auburn has been known to say: “It’s a classic case of big boys and big toys!”).  It is a lot of fun to be able to walk through a large show of equipment and tooling that is all clean and painted – you can see what it is all supposed to look like!  As an engineer, you can learn a lot about the latest tools, equipment capabilities, and the like from the sales and manufacturing reps.  The ADSC always does a great job putting this event on, and this year’s venue a the J.W. Marriott Hill Country Resort outside San Antonio was fantastic.

Dan and Robert both had papers included in the proceedings. Links to the papers are below.  Erik and Tim had presentations along with those that Dan and Robert gave on their papers.  Links to the presentations are on our Presentations page.

Brown, D.A. (2012). “Factors Affecting the Selection and Use of Drilled Shafts for Transportation Infrastructure Projects”, ADSC EXPO 2012 Geo-Construction Conference Proceedings, March 14-17, 2012, San Antonio, TX, pp25-35.

Thompson, W.R. (2012). “ADSC Research Project Update: Rock Sockets in the Southeastern U.S”, ADSC EXPO 2012 Geo-Construction Conference Proceedings, March 14-17, 2012, San Antonio, TX, pp103-117.

Update (Robert – 5/22/12): I have added a copy of an article from Foundation Drilling magazine on the ADSC research project.  To subscribe to Foundation Drilling, contact the ADSC and join!

Brown, D.A. and Thompson, W.R. (2012) “ADSC Research Supports Improved Design of Drilled Shaft Foundations in Atlanta Area Piedmont Rock”Foundation Drilling, Vol. 33, No. 2, February 2012, pp.27-39.

Bridge Foundations, Drilled Shafts, Foundation Design

Audubon Bridge Officially Complete!

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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!

Bridge Foundations

Visit to Bond Bridge (kcICON Project) in KC

I was finally able to make my first visit to the Bond Bridge in Kansas City since it was completed.  It is a very beautiful bridge that fits well into the approach to Kansas City from the north.  As foundation engineers, we don’t always get a convenient opportunity visit the large bridge structures we work on since our work is usually completed very early in the overall schedule.  We are often too involved in other projects by the time a bridge is finished on which we were the foundation/geotechnical engineer.  So, it was a personal pleasure to make a visit and drive over the bridge when John Turner and I flew into Kansas City on our way to Topeka to present the NHI Drilled Shaft Course earlier this month.  Although it was a cloudy and cold day, I think the few photos I took with my phone (camera battery was dead!) turned out good.  Mouse over each for a caption.  Enjoy!

Bond Bridge in Kansas City - View from south bank, looking downstream    Bond Bridge - looking north from near south abutment   Looking upstream on the Missouri River - Railroad truss bridge in distance

Click here for previous posts on this bridge.

Bridge Foundations, Drilled Shafts, Foundation Design

I-70 Mississippi River Bridge–News and Webcams!

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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)

Bridge Foundations, Drilled Shafts, Foundation Design, Site updates

I-70 St. Louis Bridge–New Papers by Paul and Dan

The drilled shaft foundations for the new I-70 Mississippi River Bridge in St. Louis, MO are the subject of two recent papers written by Paul and Dan and published by DFI.  Dan presented the paper focusing on the Alternate Technical Concept (ATC) process at the DFI 36th Annual Conference in October. (previous post here).  A case history paper by Paul and Dan was published last month in Volume 5, Number 2 of the DFI Journal.  Links to the papers are below, as well as on our Publications page.  Other posts on this bridge are here.

Brown, D.A., Axtell, P.J., and Kelley, J. (2011). “The Alternate Technical Concept Process for the Foundations at the New Mississippi River Bridge, St. Louis”,  Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference on Deep Foundations, 2011, Boston, MA, USA, pp171-177.

This paper was originally published in the Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference on Deep Foundations, the 2011 annual meeting of DFI.  Go to www.dfi.org to purchase the procedings or for further information.

Axtell, P.J. and Brown, D.A. (2011). “Case History – Foundations for the New Mississippi River Bridge – St.Louis”, DFI Journal Volume 5, Number 2, December 2011, Deep Foundations Institute, pp3-15.

This paper was originally published in DFI’s bi-annual journal, Volume 5, No. 2 in December 2011.  DFI is an international technical association of firms and individuals involved in the deep foundations and related industry. The DFI Journal is a member publication. To join DFI and receive the journal, go to www.dfi.org for further information.