DBA News

Tim Siegel to Teach Karst Seminar in Tennessee, awarded Diplomate, Geotechnical Engineering

Our own Tim Siegel, P.E., D.GE. will be part of the seminar Foundation Design in Karst Terrain in two locations:  Johnson City, TN (also known as the Tri-Cities) on June 16th, and in Chattanooga on August 27th.  Tim will be instructing on evaluating karst terrain and designing foundations in such terrain.  If you are interested in the seminar, information can be found here.

 

We also want to say Congratulations! to Tim for receiving the specialty certification Diplomate, Geotechnical Engineering (D.GE) from The Academy of Geo-Professionals (AGP).  Tim received the designation at the recent Geo-Institute conference Geo-Florida 2010 at West Palm Beach.  The excerpt below comes form the AGP web site.  Tim is on the second row, far left.

 

Latest Class of D.GEs Inducted in West Palm Beach, FL


(Back Row, Left to Right: Timothy Siegel, Melvin Esrig, John Wolosick, Thomas Zimmie, Kenneth Stokoe, II, Roberto Sanchez, Marco Boscardin, Allen Cadden, Thomas Witherspoon, Daniel Pradel, Edward Ulrich, Jr., Robert Lukas; Front Row, Left to Right: Peter Nicholson, Derek Cornforth, Don Dotson, Larry Jedele, Delon Hampton, Joram Amir, Anand Puppala, Larry Madrid, Ivan Contreras, Craig Benson, Tuncer Edil)

The Academy of Geo-Professional (AGP), held its latest induction ceremony on February 21st in West Palm Beach, Florida at the GeoFlorida 2010. If you have at least 8 years (post-licensure) in the geotechnical field, a P.E., and a Masters or equivalent, then you may qualify to become a Diplomate, Geotechnical Engineering (D.GE). Above is a picture of the Diplomates who were present to receive their certification plaque and pin.

Drilled Shafts, Site updates

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

Drilled Shafts, Site updates

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).

Miscellaneous

Daredevil Engineer

Those of you that know Dan know that he is into motorcycles, especially trials riding.  Some of you may thing that the headline means this post is about one of his latest riding exploits.  Surprisingly, it is not.

Recently, I (Robert) and my family went to a World of Wheels car show in Birmingham, Alabama.  This is not our normal family activity, but we went to watch Alex Bedly, an instructor at the Trials Training Center, perform as part of the On The Edge bike stunt team.  Alex is an instructor at the TTC and is the son of Catherine Bedley, our administrative assistant.  My family and I had a great time.  I was even part of the show, unknown to me until the show had started and I was called out to “volunteer”.  Check out the 35-second video below.  No engineers were harmed in the making of this clip.

Cross posted at the Trials Training Center blog.

DBA News, Drilled Shafts, Load Testing

DBA on successful St. Louis Bridge team

BridgeImage2009_MS STL mrb-logo

DBA is on the successful team that was awarded the contract for the new Mississippi River Bridge in St. Louis, Missouri.  The project is a joint project of MoDOT/IDOT with MoDOT being the lead agency.  HNTB is the lead bridge designer for the new cable-stayed bridge carrying I-70 over the river.  The bridge is one part of a larger project that also includes the Missouri North I-70 Interchange, the Illinois I-70 Connection, and the Illinois Tri-level Exchange.

From the project web site:

The $640 million Mississippi River Bridge project is proceeding through design, with construction scheduled to start in early 2010. The new Mississippi River Bridge is the first bridge built connecting downtown St. Louis and southwestern Illinois in more than 40 years. Currently, the only urban interstate bridge between Illinois and Missouri is the Poplar Street Bridge, known locally as the PSB. The PSB is one of two bridges in the United States that carry three interstates. By relocating one interstate (I-70) from the Poplar Street Bridge to the new Mississippi River Bridge, drivers will experience less congestion, fewer crashes and less unnecessary fuel use.

The new Mississippi River Bridge will be a 1,500 foot cable-stayed bridge across the Mississippi River between Metro East and St. Louis, Missouri. The bridge is two lanes in each direction, but is wide enough to be restriped for three lanes in each direction if traffic volumes warrant and additional funding is secured. In addition, the bridge project includes approaches on the Illinois and Missouri sides to get traffic to the bridge.

The wining contractor team is Massman/Traylor Brothers/Alberici Constructors.  DBA’s role was to help prepare an alternate concept for the drilled shaft foundation design which will include load test measurements.  We anticipate construction to begin in March with load test shaft.

An overview of the bridge is here.  The press release for the award of the main bridge is here.

logo-massman logo-traylor alberici

Drilled Shafts, Load Testing, Miscellaneous

Characterization of Loess for Deep Foundations

loess map

 

I have added a recent paper that Dan and Steve contributed to concerning loess that is in the November, 2009 issue of the DFI Journal.  The paper describes the results of site investigation and laboratory tests at a site in Kansas with loess deposits.  The effectiveness of various correlations between field and laboratory tests and design properties are evaluated.  Steve is currently working on the follow-up paper that evaluates lateral load tests of drilled shafts at the site.

Parson, R.L., Johnson, R.M., Brown, D.A., Dapp, S.D., and Brennan, J.J., 2009. “Characterization of Loess for Deep Foundations”, DFI Journal Volume 3, No. 2, November 2009, Deep Foundations Institute, pp14-24.

DBA News, Site updates

Tim Siegel, P.E. joins DBA!

09_tim

 

 

DBA is growing again with the addition of Tim Siegel, P.E. to our team! 

Tim has been primarily involved in the analysis and design of geotechnical structures including drilled shafts, cast-in-place piles, micropiles, and earth retention systems.  Tim is a Georgia Tech grad (like Dan!) and has worked most of his career since at S&ME and Berkel & Company Contractors, Inc. During his 12 years with S&ME, he advanced from Geotechnical Engineer to Technical Principal and Chief Engineer while developing expertise in construction in karst, seismic design, numerical modeling, and specialty foundations and retaining systems.  After leaving S&ME, he was a Senior Geotechnical Engineer with Berkel and was involved in large deep foundation projects all over the United States. While at Berkel, he led the development of the ground improvement technique using Berkel’s ground displacement technology. While at S&ME and then while at Berkel, he taught upper level and graduate level courses while on the faculty of the University of Tennessee.  Tim’s resume can be found in the About US section of our site.

We are really glad to have Tim joining us.  As you can see by his photo, he has the requisite hair style!

Drilled Shafts, Miscellaneous

kcICON project moving along – see it on Facebook and YouTube

The kcICON project in Kansas City, Missouri is using Facebook and YouTube as a public relations tool.  They have recently posted new videos and pictures.  The latest video is of demolition of one of the existing approach structures.   It is all done for public relations, so the photos and videos are oriented for the general public, showing how the project is moving along, how their tax dollars are being spent, and providing information on lane closures, etc.

The kcICON Facebook page is here.  The project website with more photos and a web cam is here.  You can also follow the project on Twitter here.

I expect we’ll see more use of Facebook, Twitter, etc. on projects in the future.  It appears to be effective, at least for the techno-savy crowd!

Specialists in Deep Foundation Design, Construction, and Testing and Slope Stability Problems