Tag Archives: Drilled Shafts

Drilled Shafts, Driven Piles, Foundation Design, Ground Improvement, Miscellaneous

Hastings Update and Photo Album

Well, I, David, have survived my first (and hopefully last) winter in Minnesota.  I spent most of January and February observing the installation of the Pier 5 drilled shafts at the new Hastings bridge project in Hastings, Minnesota.  In addition to the drilled shafts, there has been a lot activity at Hastings since Aaron last blogged about this project in January.  A link to his post is here.  All of the ground improvement piles for the column-supported embankment have been installed and approximately 75% of the caps have been poured.  The 42-inch piles and pile caps for Piers 8, 9, and 10 are also complete.  Piles for the north embankment retaining wall have been installed and construction of the wall has begun.  Excavation for the rock bearing spread footings that will support the south land piers is in progress.  Work at Piers 6 and 7 and on the north shore are currently on hold as the Mississippi River is experiencing its annual spring flood. The water level is about 14 feet above normal elevation.

I have taken the pictures Paul and I have collected over the last few months and uploaded some of the more interesting ones to a Picasa web album.  The pictures are generally in chronological order and cover most of the construction process from November of 2010 right up to the end of March 2011.  A link to our our video of a Statnamic load test at Hastings that Aaron blogged about is here.

Drilled Shafts, Site updates

kcICON Bridge Nears Completion

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.

 

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KcICON Bridge 100928 View of Pylon_s

 

 

 

kcICON Bridge 220910 Pylon

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

A Foundation Engineering Trip Down the Mississippi River

A Foundation Engineering Trip_Brown_STGEC 2010Dan 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.

 

 

STGEC 2010 - Pile Load Tests in New Orleans - R Thompson 100915Immediately 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, Site updates

New Project Summaries Added

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:

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

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Hurricane Protection Projects, New Orleans, Louisiana

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

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Mullica River Bridge Test Shaft, Port Republic, New Jersey

Drilled Shafts, Driven Piles, Miscellaneous

Bridge updates – kcICON, Audubon, Beck Street

As geotechnical/foundation engineers, we don’t usually get to see much of what happens on a project after the foundations are completed, especially a project like a large bridge that can take years to complete.  Technology such as the Internet, webcams, and digital photography have made it easy for us to see how things are progressing on projects, as well as maybe get images of the completed structure.  As I have noted before, some projects are using Twitter and Facebook to keep the public informed on closures, delays or overall project progress as part of good public relations.  Her are some updates on a few of our recent projects.

 

kcICON:

The main span is well underway, including the cables.  The kcICON Facebook page is here.

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Audubon Bridge:

Check out the webcam.  You can download images if you like.  YOu can also do a time-lapse from Day 1 of construction.

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Beck Street Bridge:

Part of the I-15 Express Link project in Salt Lake City, UT.   The photos below I obtained from the photos page on the project web site.  We were involved in the design and construction of the foundations for the Beck Street Bridge only.

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Drilled Shafts, Ground Improvement, Load Testing, Site updates

Geo-Florida 2010 Papers posted

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Audubon graph-GeoFlorida-Dapp

 

Papers by Dan, Steve, and Tim that were included in the GeoFlorida 2010 conference have been uploaded to our Publications page.  Dan and Steve co-authored a paper on the test program of the base grouted drilled shafts for the Audubon Bridge.  Tim co-authored a paper with Willie NeSmith of Berkel and Company Contractors, Inc. on plate load testing of displacement grout columns.  Dan was also a co-author with several others on a paper on jet grouting for improved pile lateral capacity.

 

Dapp, S.D. and Brown, D.A. (2010). “Evaluation of Base Grouted Drilled Shafts at the Audubon Bridge”, GeoFlorida 2010, Advances in Analysis, Modeling and Design, Geotechnical Special Publication No. 199, ASCE, pp1553-1562.

Rollins, K.M., Herbst, M., Adsero, M. and Brown, D.A. (2010) “Jet Grouting and Soil Mixing for Increased Lateral Pile Group Resistance”, GeoFlorida 2010, Advances in Analysis, Modeling and Design, Geotechnical Special Publication No. 199, ASCE, pp1563-1572.

Siegel, T.C. and NeSmith, W.M. (2010). “Large-Scale Plate Load Testing of Ground Improvement Using Displacement Grout Columns”, GeoFlorida 2010, Advances in Analysis, Modeling and Design, Geotechnical Special Publication No. 199, ASCE, pp2398-2405.

DBA News, Miscellaneous, Site updates

Artistic Construction Photo Contest – Volume 1

Old School (HPL) - R. Thompson

With all of us visiting construction projects across the country, occasionally we take a photo that appears to be somewhat “artistic” – maybe the lighting (or lack of), or the aspect.  I have assembled a few such photos submitted by DBA engineers in the first installment of the DBA Artistic Construction Photo Contest. Included in this installment are such items as: “Daybreak on Night Shift at JJA” and “Fountain” by S. Dapp, the series “Evolution” by P. Axtell, “GI Rig at Sunset” by T. Siegel, and “Piles in the Mist” by R. Thompson.  This first volume has more photos of mine than others, but we’ll work on better balance in future volumes.

Feel free to “vote” for your favorite in the comments.  I’ll try to update periodically as we have more “worthy” photos!

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).

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.

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