Category Archives: Drilled Shafts

Audubon Bridge Closure–The Span is Complete!

February 1, 2011 Robert Thompson

On December 29, 2010, Audubon Bridge Constructors recently “closed” the main span of the John James Audubon Bridge between New Roads and St. Francisville, Louisiana. Watch the video featured at the top of the page at the bridge link to hear about the bridge, including the drilled shaft foundations! For something really fascinating, go to the webcams here and scroll back through the various dates. They have archived images all the way back to start of construction.

Photo: Chris Usery, Figg Bridge Inspectors

The last cables were installed on January 3, 2011 as noted on the project website:

The last two cable stays of the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere were installed on January 3, 2011, five days after the spans were connected. The John James Audubon Bridge, Louisiana’s newest crossing over the Mississippi River, now has all of its 136 cable stays in place.

This bridge will be the longest cable-stayed bridge in North America when it opens later in 2011. Again, from the project web site:

The spans of the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Western Hemisphere were connected on December 29, 2010, stretching 1/3 of a mile over the Mississippi River. The John James Audubon Bridge, connecting Pointe Coupee and West Feliciana parishes in Louisiana, is approximately 92% complete. Construction of the spans began from both sides of the 500-foot tall towers earlier this year. Both sides continue to progress at a rapid pace, and now the meeting of the spans has occurred.

Steve Dapp and I had the pleasure of working with many great people during our time on site (much more time for Steve than for me!) during foundation construction. One of them, Chris Ursery of Figg Bridge Inspectors, has been great about providing us with photos now and then to keep us updated of some of the details of the bridge construction. Chris has granted us permission to share a few of his recent photos, which are shown below or can be seen in our web albums here.

Previous post on Audubon Bridge.

Drilled Shafts, Driven Piles, Load Testing

Hastings Bridge Update

January 12, 2011 Robert Thompson

Good morning DBA fans! I’m here to give you the latest news on the Hastings Bridge project.

The weather has been a bit chilly in Hastings, MN but that isn’t stopping progress. Paul provided the update below and this picture of one of the beautiful mornings on the site.

Installation of the 12.75” diameter open-ended pipe piles for the column-supported embankment (CSE) is well under way. Each pile is around 165’ in length and will support a geogrid-reinforced load transfer platform (LTP). Light weight fill, or geofoam, will be used to transition from the CSE into the existing embankment.

Installation of the North Embankment retaining wall piles has begun and is about 50% complete.

The Pier 10 test pile was installed and tested with AFT’s 30MN axial Statnamic device. The pile is a 42” open-ended pipe pile with 7/8” wall and is embedded about 190’. Check out the video below. The Pier 6 test pile has also been installed and tested axially and laterally with a Statnamic device.

That’s all for now, but come back later for additional updates on this exciting project. Thanks for reading!

Drilled Shafts, Driven Piles

kcICON Project Opens Ahead of Schedule

January 3, 2011 Robert Thompson

The kcICON project in Kansas City has been completed six months ahead of schedule and within budget with all lanes and ramps being open on December 18th. Demolition has begun on the existing Paseo bridge. You can see some photos of the demolition (like the one in this post – thanks kcICON!) at their Facebook page. It was a great experience for us to have been a part of this project. If you want to see all of our previous posts on this, click here. Other points of interest are linked below.

The Kansas City District of MoDOT

DBA News, Drilled Piles, Drilled Shafts, Load Testing

New I-70 Bridge Featured in Foundation Drilling Magazine

December 10, 2010 David Graham

The new I-70 bridge over the Mississippi River near St. Louis, Missouri is quite the project. When completed, it will be the third longest cable-stayed bridge in the United States, with a 1,500-ft main span. Most significantly for the geotechnical community, the bridge made history when one of its 11-ft diameter drilled shafts resisted a world record breaking 36,000 tons (bi-directional) during an O-cell load test. The bridge has already seen press in Civil Engineering Magazine (July 2010, page 30-32), at ENR.com, and in a post by Robert on this blog. Now, an article by DBA’s Paul Axtell is featured in the September/October issue of Foundation Drilling Magazine. The editor summarized the article saying:

The information in the following article is a composite of material that came to Foundation Drilling Magazine from three separate sources. Part I is based on information gleaned from an article that was published on the Associated Press news wire. Part II is excerpted from ENR’s August 18th, E-Newsletter. Part III was provided by Paul Axtell and Dan Brown of ADSC Technical Affiliate company, Dan Brown and Associates. The bridge project is of interest in general. The Osterberg Load Cell test will be of particular interest to professionals in the deep foundation industry, and specifically for those who work in the drilled shaft segment.

Axtell, P.J. (2010). “Mississippi River Bridge Project Includes Record Load Test: A Three Part Story”, Foundation Drilling, Vol. 31, No. 7 September/October 2010.

Drilled Shafts, Site updates

kcICON Bridge Nears Completion

November 2, 2010 Robert Thompson

Paul received a few photos of the kcICON bridge that are just too cool not to share. These were sent to him by Massman Construction. These were taken in September of this year. MoDOT’s Flicker album of the dedication ceremony is here. The new bridge was dedicated and partially opened to traffic (southbound) on September 27th. The northbound traffic was shifted to the new structure on October 22nd. All of the bridges and ramps for the project will be opened by the end of the year – 6 months ahead of schedule. Can’t wait to see it after the exisitng bridge is demoloshed, though it is a pretty cool image with the old and new bridges together. Updates for the project are on the project Facebook Page.

Click here for previous posts on kcICON.

DBA News, Drilled Shafts, Driven Piles, Load Testing, Site updates

A Foundation Engineering Trip Down the Mississippi River

November 1, 2010 Robert Thompson

Dan recently played the part of storyteller at the Southeastern Transportation Geotechnical Engineering Conference (STGEC) 2010 conference in Charleston, West Virginia when he gave the lunch presentation on the conference’s first day. He took the audience on a trip down the Mississippi River from a foundation engineer’s perspective, talking about several bridges that DBA has had the pleasure to work on, or is still working on, along the river the last few years. Dan began with the I-35W Bridge replacement in Minneapolis, Minnesota and ended at the Huey P. Long Bridge in New Orleans, Louisiana. Stops along the way included the Hastings Bridge (Hastings Minnesota), the new I-70 Bridge (St. Louis, Missouri), and the Audubon Bridge (New Roads/St. Francisville, Louisiana). Dan covered some of the technical issues/problems associated with each project and the solutions applied to complete the foundations (or complete the design). It was a very informative talk presented in a unique way that everyone at the luncheon seemed to enjoy. Dan’s presentation is now available on our Presentations Page.

Posts on Hastings Bridge here.

Posts on I-70 Bridge here.

Posts on Audubon Bridge here.

Posts on the Huey P. Long Bridge here.

Immediately after lunch, Robert made a presentation that described some of the pile load tests performed on two of the storm protection projects in New Orleans that DBA was privileged to be involved with through Kiewit. By following Dan, it provided a little continuity to the story as Robert took the group below the Huey P. Long Bridge to the levees and canals downstream of New Orleans. Robert’s presentation can also be found on our Presentations Page.

Post on the pile load tests here.

DBA News, Drilled Shafts, Driven Piles

DBA on team for New Hastings, MN Bridge

August 30, 2010 Robert Thompson

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 existing 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: Many articles, ongoing

9/22 Star Tribune: New Hastings Bridge is on the way

July 1 South Washington County Bulletin: Bridge design chosen: It will be the tied-arch

July 1 Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal: Lunda/Ames team wins $120M Hastings Bridge contract

DBA News, Drilled Shafts, Site updates

New FHWA Drilled Shaft Manual is Done!

July 7, 2010 Robert Thompson

Although 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.

DBA News, Drilled Shafts, Load Testing

World Record O-Cell Load Test in St. Louis, MO!

June 30, 2010 Robert Thompson

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

DBA News, Drilled Shafts, Driven Piles, Site updates

New Project Summaries Added

May 28, 2010 Robert Thompson

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:

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

Hurricane Protection Projects, New Orleans, Louisiana

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

Mullica River Bridge Test Shaft, Port Republic, New Jersey

Dan Brown and Associates, LLC