Tag Archives: Corps of Engineers

Drilled Piles, Drilled Shafts, Foundation Testing, Load Testing

Kansas City Load Test Photos Added

BPU Load Test

Last spring, DBA conducted a construction phase load test program for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers floodwall improvement project  along the Missouri River in Kansas City, Kansas.  Located on property owned and maintained by the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities (BPU), the BPU floodwall was slated for structural improvements including a series of buttresses founded on 24-in drilled shafts.  As part of the project contract a load test program performed under the direction of a qualified P.E. and D.GE was required.  General contractor L.G. Barcus & Sons, Inc., secured our Paul Axtell, P.E., D.GE as the qualified load test expert.  DBA teamed up with load testing subcontractor Applied Foundation Testing, Inc., to perform the static load tests.

The load test program requirements included three test shafts, a statically loaded axial test shaft, a statically loaded lateral test shaft, and a combined statically loaded axial and lateral test shaft.  The required combined lateral and axial test shaft provided some unique challenges with respect to applying the loads and collecting data.  As can be seen in the picture above, the axial load was applied using dead weights.

We have added selected pictures from this unique project to our web albums, which can be viewed here.

Driven Piles, Load Testing, Site updates

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.

Miscellaneous

Soil Inclusions in Jet Grout Columns – DFI Journal Volume 3, May 2009

Paul was a co-author of another paper on jet grout columns based on a project at Tuttle Creek Dam near Manhattan, Kansas.  This was a project Paul worked on when he was with the Corp of Engineers (Kansas City District).  The extensive work performed at the site is yielding a lot of valuable information for the geo-engineering and geo-construction professions.

 

The paper is in the latest issue of the DFI Journal, published by the Deep Foundations Institute.  Click on the image below or go to our Publications page.

 

Soil Inclusions in Jet Grout Columns-DFI Journal Vol3-May2009