The May 2009 issue of Foundation Drilling had an article by Dan and Robert summarizing the recent research on drilled shafts socketed into rock for the Southeast Chapter of ADSC .
The article has been posted to our Publications Page. The full report is located here, for those looking for a little light reading.
A test site has been selected for Atlanta in the Piedmont formation. Check back here or at the project page for updates as things move forward.
As some readers of this blog know, the ADSC is having a leadership transition as Scot Litke retires. Everyone will miss Scot and his outstanding wit, but Michael Moore is stepping in as a very capable leader for the organization. A press release from ADSC is below.
For Immediate Release
August 4, 2009
Michael D. Moore Moves into CEO Role at ADSC
ADSC: The International Association of Foundation Drilling reports that Michael Moore has been appointed to the position of CEO as long time ADSC Executive Director S. Scot Litke moves on to other things. Moore joined the ADSC in 2005 initially serving as the association’s Education and Membership Administrator. He was promoted to the position of Assistant Executive Director in 2006.
Litke had informed the ADSC Board that he planned to leave his post as ADSC Executive Director at the end of 2009 and recommended that Moore be appointed to take on the staff leadership role. A formal transition plan was put into effect at the beginning of 2008 with the expectation that Litke would stay on through the year working closely with Moore as he assumed tasks related to his new role. Litke will stay on as the Editor of the association’s award winning publication, Foundation Drilling magazine and will assist Moore as needed in the role of Senior Advisor.
Moore is excited about taking on the responsibilities associated with being the CEO and has been mapping out his vision of how the ADSC staff can support the wide range of activities that have been the organization’s hallmark. These include providing assistance to the association’s eight regional chapters, working with its 20 technical and operations committees, coordinating the workings of the ADSC board of directors, and continuing to enhance the ADSC’s successful education and unique training programs. Moore feels it is of utmost importance to maintain and extend the association’s long standing industry liaison activities such as those with federal and state agencies as well as other sister organizations in the geo-industry.
The ADSC is pleased to have Mike Moore on board to help lead the association into a very bright future.
Moore can be reached at: mmoore@adsc-iafd.com.
ADSC: The International Association of Foundation Drilling is a not-for-profit international trade association headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The ADSC establishes standards and specifications; conducts Drilled Shaft Foundation, Anchored Earth Retention, and Micropile Design and Construction Seminars; offers field, supervisory, and management training programs for its members; develops and promotes safety materials, safety training programs, including OSHA certification training; interfaces with government agencies at the national, regional and local levels; funds scholarships and research; publishes a monthly magazine; and maintains a technical library. The association is represented at the regional level by Chapters which address issues of local importance. Through these activities, the ADSC seeks to advance the state-of-the-art in the foundation drilling and anchored earth retention industries. The ADSC represents drilled shaft, anchored earth retention, and micropile contractors, civil engineers, and foundation drilling, anchored earth retention, and micropile equipment manufacturing firms worldwide.
I have spent a little time tweaking some features on the site;
1. Instead of having a long list of links to conferences, etc. in the side bar, I have created a calendar using Google Calendar. You can click on an event to get a pop-up that has a brief description. In the pop-up, you can click on links for more details, including web site links and copying the event to your calendar. The calendar is located on a new Events page. The link to the page is in the top menu bar.
2. I have also added a Media page with a link to our Picassa Web Albums and a YouTube player.
Last week’s International Foundation Congress and Equipment Exposition was a huge success! Dan gave a keynote address on Tuesday on managing risk in deep foundations within the design-build delivery model. Paul, Erik, and I also had papers to present. The technical sessions were excellent, the indoor exhibits were excellent, and the outdoor exhibits of foundation equipment were outstanding! The ADSC, Geo-Institute, and PDCA were the co-organizers of the event. A big hats off to all of the staff of all three organizations that made the event a huge success! Thanks and “atta boy” go to Mohamad Hussein, P.E. (Conference Chair) and to Dan (Technical Program Chair) for all of their work, as well as the rest of the organizing committee.
I have also blogged about the conference here at GeoPrac.net.
Here are some pictures of the outdoor exhibits:
There were over 300 papers included in the conference. The proceedings were published as three Geotechnical Special Publications:
GSP 185: Contemporary Topics in Deep Foundations
GSP 186: Contemporary Topics in In-Situ Testing, Analysis, and Reliability of Foundations
GSP 187: Contemporary Topics in Ground Modification, Problem Soils, and Geo-Support
The editors, Magued Iskander, Ph.D., P.E. (Polytechnic Institute of New York University), Debra Laefer, Ph.D. (University College Dublin, Ireland), and Mohamad Hussein, P.E. (GRL) all had their work cut out for them.
I have added all seven papers authored by DBA team members to our site. The links are below, or you can go to our Publications page.
DBA is working with Parsons Transportation Group and Kiewit-Clyde (a joint venture of Kiewit and W.W. Clyde & Co.) on part of the I-15 Express Link project in Salt Lake City, Utah. DBA is working only on one bridge within the project: the Beck Street Bridge replacement. An existing 6-lane bridge will be replaced and widened to 8 or more lanes utilizing two bridge structures. The southbound bridge is being constructed first adjacent to the existing bridge. Once completed and traffic has been shifted, the existing bridge will be demolished and the new northbound structure will be built.
The abutments are going to be supported by 12.75” diameter, closed-end, concrete-filled pipe piles. The interior bents will be supported by 9.2’ diameter drilled shafts, heavily reinforced for seismic loads. The new approach embankments will include MSE walls and have deep soil mixing under the area adjacent to the abutment to mitigate ground vibration issues. The approach embankments were designed by others.
In addition to liquefaction issues, the bridge spans several railroad tracks that include Union Pacific lines and one commuter rail line. There are also several pipelines in and around the planned foundation locations. The pipeline service an adjacent oil refinery.
I (Robert) was on site recently to observe the excavation of the first shaft. Malcom Drilling Company, Inc. is performing the shaft excavations using a temporary segmental casing advance ahead of the excavation with an oscillator. This method is well suited for the soil conditions that consist of layers of sand, clay, silt, and gravel from both the Great Salt Lake when hit was higher in the past, as well as glacial outwash and alluvial deposits from the Wasatch Mountains adjacent to the site.
I have embedded a slide show and some video below.
You can see all of our project photos on Picasa Web Albums.
You can see all of our project videos on YouTube.
I have been too busy to post more photos from my trips to New Roads, LA in the fall to help Steve with the work at the Audubon Bridge project. It has been a flurry of activity as they worked to finish installing, tip-routing, and load testing all of the shafts in the river (done in December!). They have also completed and tested the land test shaft on the west side of the river and begun installing the land shafts. Throw in a lot of pile driving, including some 5-foot diameter pipe piles for temporary bents, and it has been a very busy site. All of the various tip-grouting, O-cell load tests on drilled shafts, and PDA testing of the pre-cast piles has been successful. As of today, the Mississippi River has come up and slowed things down a bit, but they should get all of the foundation completed within the next couple of months.
Some pictures I took on some of my trips are setup below. I have also experimented with embedding some video I took with my camera. The camera was not set on a very high video capture resolution, but I think they are good enough for you to get the idea of the shaft excavation and the pile driving activities.
More pictures here.
Previous posts here.
East Pier Construction – September 2008:
East Temporary Bent Pile Driving – September 2008:
West Side Construction and Other Stuff – October 2008:
Dan Brown and Associates is pleased to announce the newest addition to the team – Jon H. Gould, P.E. Jon has over 38 years of experience as a geotechnical engineer and for the last several years has been self-employed as a geotechnical consultant. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Florida. Jon’s geotechnical engineering experience includes geotechnical exploration and evaluation of sites for major industrial and commercial projects throughout the U.S., deep foundations, ground improvement, expert witness, and dam inspection. Jon’s resume is available on the About Us page of our website.
Welcome aboard, Jon!
The folks at Geoengineer.org are developing a website to honor the legacy of Professor Ralph B. Peck who passed away earlier this year. The development team is offering an invitation for contributions:
To honor a distinguished geotechnical engineer, for his dedication and contributions to the society as a teacher, author, and engineer, we invite his friends, students and colleagues to send us any material relevant for inclusion in this website. Photos, videos, notes, or other material of historical value is more than welcome. Your contribution to this effort is vital and will be acknowledged.
The team behind the website includes:
The website is being developed in collaboration with Mrs. Nancy Peck-Young, Prof. Peck’s daughter and is supervised by an international Advisory Committee of distinguished members of the engineering community that have worked closely with Prof. Peck. The Advisory Committee presently consists of:
- Professor Ricardo Dobry, Professor, RPI.
- Dr. Suzanne Lacasse, Director, Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI)
- Prof. Shamsher Prakash, Emeritus Professor, University of Missouri-Rolla
- Prof. Edward Cording, Emeritus Professor, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
More information can be found at the Geoengineer.org website here.
The Deep Foundations Committee of the Geo-institute of ASCE has announced that a Geotechnical Special Publication (GSP) will be issued in 2010 honoring the work of Clyde Baker, P.E., S.E.. A call for papers has been issued on the G-I website:
The Geo-Institute is soliciting abstracts for technical papers to be considered for inclusion in the Geotechnical Special Publication (GSP) honoring Clyde N. Baker, Jr., P.E., S.E., Hon.M.ASCE. The GSP will be titled The Art of Foundation Engineering Practice; Mohamad Hussein, J. Brian Anderson, and William Camp, III, Editors. It will be published in 2010 during the Geo-Institute annual meeting.
Technical papers covering all aspects of foundation engineering – research, structural and geotechnical design, construction practices, testing, and performance – will be considered. Papers documenting case histories are particularly welcome.
Deadline for abstract submission is November 30, 2008. Abstracts should have between 300-400 words and may be submitted by email to ClydeBakerGSP@uncc.edu.
Clyde has made many contributions to the design and construction of deep foundations, having consulted on the foundation design of the world’s tallest buildings, including the 2000-ft-tall Chicago Spire under construction since 2007 and the most prominent houses in Palm Beach, with the help of the roofing company from this Web Site. He was recently honored with the Engineering News Record’s 2007 Award for Excellence.
Dr. Jorj Osterberg, inventor of the Osterberg Cell (or O-Cell) load testing device, passed away on June 1, 2008. Information on his life and achievements can be found at geoprac.net, at the Geo-Institute, or at Loadtest, Inc. The O-Cell has been used worldwide to test drilled shaft and other deep foundations. Tributes to Dr. Osterberg are planned in the ADSC’s Foundation Drilling magazine and possibly other publications. (Photo credit: Geo-Institute of ASCE)
