Tag Archives: Geotechnical Engineering

Drilled Piles, Foundation Design, Foundation Testing, Ground Improvement, Load Testing

Foundations for the New Sacremento Entertainment and Sports Center

 

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Contributed by Rob Saunders, P.E. – DBA

DBA has been working on an exciting new project currently under construction in downtown Sacramento, California: the new Sacramento Arena, known as the Entertainment and Sports Center (ESC).  The ESC will be a multi-use, publicly owned indoor arena. The Sacramento Kings will be the primary tenant and the arena is expected to host other indoor sports and music concerts, as well.  Once completed, the ESC will replace Sleep Train Arena as the home of the Kings.  According to Kings Chairman Vivek Ranadive, the 17,500-seat arena will be “one of the most iconic structures on the planet … It’s going to put Sacramento on the world map.”

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Turner Construction is the head of development for the new arena. Malcolm Drilling Company was awarded the contract to design and construct the foundation system.  DBA worked closely with Malcolm to design Omega piles (a drilled and grouted displacement pile) to serve as the foundations for the new arena.  The site presented unique design challenges, including liquefiable soil conditions and existing deep foundations from the demolisLogo_Malcolm_Stacked_Bluehed portion of the Downtown Plaza.

DBA’s design incorporates 18” and 24”  Omega piles.  An extensive site-specific load test program was performed to determine the axial resistances of the piles.  Eight test piles were instrumented with strain gauges to measure the load distribution in the piles.  Supplemental cone penetration testing was performed following load testing to better correlate the load test results with the subsurface conditions.

The piles were designed to resist ground motions from seismic events using site-specific ground curvature data developed by Pacific Engineering and Analysis. The piles were designed to resist the curvature at the anticipated pile section with only a single center reinforcing bar, eliminating the need to extend the entire cage to the bottom of the pile. This detail in the design is very important to ease the pile installation for the site conditions.

The final design incorporates a total of 952 piles to support the arena structure (346 18” dia. Piles and 606 24” dia. piles). The new arena is estimated to cost $477 million, with $255 million of that being funded by the City of Sacramento. The rest of the arena ($222 million) will be funded by the Sacramento Kings. Construction began October 29, 2014 and is planned to be completed by October of 2016.

The groundbreaking for the project was featured by the Sacremento Bee on October 29, 2014 (link).

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.

Bridge Foundations, DBA News, Research

New PEER Report – Evaluation of Collapse and Non-Collapse of Parallel Bridges Affected by Liquefaction and Lateral Spreading

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Our own Ben Turner (future Dr. Turner!) was lead author on a report by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) on liquefaction and lateral spreading effects on bridges. The report is titled “Evaluation of Collapse and Non-Collapse of Parallel Bridges Affected by Liquefaction and Lateral Spreading”. Ben’s coauthors are Dr. Scott J. Brandenberg and Dr. Jonathan P. Stewart of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCLA. From the abstract:

The Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center and the California Department of Transportation have recently developed design guidelines for computing foundation demands during lateral spreading using equivalent static analysis (ESA) procedures. In this study, ESA procedures are applied to two parallel bridges that were damaged during the 2010 M 7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake in Baja California, Mexico. The bridges are both located approximately 15 km from the surface rupture of the fault on soft alluvial soil site conditions. Estimated median ground motions in the area in the absence of liquefaction triggering are peak ground  accelerations = 0.27g and peak ground velocity = 38 cm/sec (RotD50 components). The bridges are structurally similar and both are supported on deep foundations, yet they performed differently during the earthquake. A span of the pile-supported railroad bridge collapsed, whereas the drilled-shaft-supported highway bridge suffered only moderate damage and remained in service following the earthquake. The ESA procedures applied to the structures using a consistent and repeatable framework for developing input parameters captured both the collapse of the railroad bridge and the performance of the highway bridge. Discussion is provided on selection of the geotechnical and structural modeling parameters as well as combining inertial demands with kinematic demands from lateral spreading.

This report is part of Ben’s work on his doctoral dissertation. You can download the report by clicking on the linked citation below.

Turner, B., Brandenberg, S.J. and Stewart, J.P. (2014). “Evaluation of Collapse and Non-Collapse of Parallel Bridges Affected by Liquefaction and Lateral Spreading”, PEER Report 2014/10, Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkley, August, 2014, 94pp.

Bridge Construction, Bridge Foundations, Foundation Design

Goethals Bridge Replacement – Webcam!

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DBA is on the design-build team that is replacing the Goethals Bridge for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ). We are not able to post much about the project or our involvement due to security agreements. However, the PANYNJ has a public website for the project (http://www.panynj.gov/bridges-tunnels/goethals-bridge-replacement.html) that has several webcams.  As is the case with most big projects these days, the webcams are a common feature and show some great views of the project.

To give you an idea of what the project involves, here is a summary from the PANYNJ site:

The replacement bridge will be located directly south of the existing bridge and will provide:

  • Three 12-foot-wide lanes in each direction replacing the current two narrow 10-foot-wide lanes
  • A 12-foot-wide outer shoulder and a 5-foot-wide inner shoulder in each direction
  • A 10-foot-wide sidewalk/bikeway along the northern edge of the New Jersey-bound roadway
  • Improved safety conditions and performance reliability by meeting current geometric design, structural integrity, security and seismic standards, and reduces life-cycle cost
  • A central corridor between the eastbound and westbound roadway decks, sufficient to accommodate potential transit service
  • State-of-the-art smart bridge technology

The project also includes the demolition of the existing bridge upon completion of the replacement bridge.

You can learn more about the project at the same web site.  There is also a site for the current bridge, including history of the construction, etc.

Bridge Foundations, Foundation Design, Foundation Testing, Ground Improvement, Research

NCHRP Report 697 – Design Guidelines for Increasing Lateral Resistance of Bridge Pile Foundations

nchrp_rpt_697_coverWe have added a link to the NCHRP Report No. 697 Design Guidelines for Increasing Lateral Resistance of Bridge Pile Foundations.  This report was published in 2011 and authored by Kyle Rollins, Pd.D., P.E. of Brigham Young University and our own Dan Brown.  Dr. Rollins is a Professor in Geotechnical Engineering specializing in earthquake engineering and soil improvement.

 

In the forward of the report, Andrew Lemer of TRB writes:

NCHRP Report 697: Design Guidelines for Increasing the Lateral Resistance of Highway- Bridge Pile Foundations by Improving Weak Soils presents design guidance for strengthening of soils to resist lateral forces on bridge pile foundations. Lateral loads may be produced by wave action, wind, seismic events, ship impact, or traffic. Strengthening of soil surrounding the upper portions of piles and pile groups—for example by compaction, replacement of native soil with granular material, or mixing of cement with soil—may be more cost-effective than driving additional piles and extending pile caps as ways to increase the bridge foundation’s capacity to resist lateral forces associated with these loads. This report presents computational methods for assessing soil-strengthening options using finite-element analysis of single piles and pile groups and a simplified approach employing commercially available software. The Additional resources and design guidelines will be helpful to designers responsible for bridge foundations likely to be exposed to significant lateral loads.

Be sure to browse all of the nifty reports and projects in geotechnical and foundation engineering at TRB here.

Also check out our Publications page regularly for new postings.

Miscellaneous

Websites That ROCK!

The blogosphere, as the world of blogging is sometimes called, is always changing as blogs come and go.  A new one focusing on geology education is geologydegree.org.  This is a new blog intended to promote the study of geology.  A recent post called Geology Online: 105 Websites That Rock included our very own blog as well as that of one of our good friends, GeoPrac.net by RockMan (aka Randy Post).  While DBA (and others listed, including GeoPrac.net) are not strictly geological blogs or websites, what we do includes a lot of geology as we design foundations to bear in or on rock.  Understanding the geology of a site is also important to understand the soils that are present above the bedrock.  Take a look, especially if you have a young’un (that’s Southern for young one, or child) at home that may find geology or geotechnical engineering interesting, although most of the childs these days just like to play LOL.

Terzaghi & History

Happy Karl Terzaghi’s Birthday 2013!

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Happy Karl Terzaghi’s Birthday, my friends!  Yes, it is time to raise our coffee, espresso, tea, wine, beer or other beverage to toast the Father of Modern Soil Mechanics as has been our custom here at the DBA blog.

As I pondered what to write this year, I perused a couple of books and ended up looking through my copy of Richard Goodman’s  “Karl Terzaghi – The Engineer as Artist”.  Among the many stories and accounts, I found this passage recounting an incident in the late 1950s (Ch. 17, pp245):

At this critical time, the world was reminded of the terrible consequences of dam failure when Board member Andre Coyne’s Malpassat Dam failed in France, causing more than 400 deaths (in Frejus, very near Ruth’s 1939 refuge on the French Riviera).  It failed on the initial filling of the reservoir due to geological weakness in one of the rock abutments of the very thin concrete arch.Later Karl would express sever criticism of the decision to bold such a structure on a geologically inadequate site.  But now he comforted his distraught colleague, writing that “failures of this kind are, unfortunately, essential and inevitable links in the chain of progress in the realm of engineering, because there are no other means for detecting the limits to the validity of our concepts and procedures…. The torments which you experienced should at least be tempered by the knowledge that the sympathies of your colleagues in the engineering profession will be coupled with their gratitude for the benefits which they have derived from your bold pioneering.”

Throughout the book, Goodman does an excellent job of showing the different facets of Terzaghi, and this is no exception.  He had a reputation of being a tough, direct, and straight-forward engineer that did not pull punches.  Here we see a somewhat softer side as he comforts a colleague, who was an expert in his own right.

If you have not read Goodman’s book, I highly recommend it for all Terzaghi fans!  It is published by ASCE and can be found through the ASCE Bookstore, or at other book retailers.  (Disclosure:  Neither DBA or any of its employees receive any commissions, compensation, or other considerations for promoting this book.)

Drilled Shafts, Driven Piles, Foundation Design, Foundation Testing, Industry News and Events

Deep Foundations Events Update–October 2013

As involved as we are in the deep foundations industry (and just returning from the DFI annual conference), it seemed appropriate to take time to highlight several upcoming events in the industry.  All of these are great opportunities to get PDH credits, do some networking, and build relationships in the deep foundations industry.  Most are cooperative efforts of one or more of the G-I, DFI, PDCA, and ADSC.  All of them have a line-up of great speakers that are leaders in the industry.  Click on the links below to learn more about each one. 

 

14th Annual Design and Installation of Cost-Efficient Piles Conference
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Sheraton North Houston, Houston, TX

The DICEP conference will present modern approaches to maximize Efficiency, Effectiveness and Economy (E3) of driven piles through a series of presentations including driven pile design, testing, evaluation and case studies.  Steel sheet pile design and corrosion protection are also addressed.

 

 

Drilled Shaft Foundations Seminar – Reliability in Drilled Shaft Foundations
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Hilton Midtown, New York, NY

The program will feature presentations by leading industry design engineers and civil engineering contractors on some problems encountered with drilled shaft foundations and how those problems were solved.

 

 

Driven Pile – A Foundation for the 21st Century
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Loews Vanderbilt Hotel, Nashville, TN

  • A one-day specialty seminar on driven piles
  • Featuring 11 presentations by key industry professionals
  • Provides 6 PDH credits for all participants, including 1 PDH on Ethics  

 

 

Here are few open Calls for Abstracts (by order of due date):

IFCEE 2015 – March 17-21, 2015 – San Antoniio, TX – Due October 28, 2013

DFI 39th Annual Conference on Deep Foundations – October 21-24, 2014 – Atlanta, GA – Due January 10, 2014

DFI Superpile 2014 – June 19-20, 2014 – Cambridge, MA – Due February 3, 2014

Industry News and Events

Call for Abstracts – 2015 International Foundations Congress and Equipment Exposition (IFCEE 2015)

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Although 2015 seems like a long way away, when you are planning the largest foundation engineering and construction conference in the U.S., you need to get started early!  The organizing committee for the  the 2015 International Foundations Congress and Equipment Exposition (IFCEE 2015) has released the Call for Abstracts here at the conference website.

This conference will be at the JW Marriott in San Antonio, Texas, March 17-21, 2015 and is hosted by a joint effort of ADSC: The International Association of Foundation Drilling (ADSC), Deep Foundations Institute (DFI), Geo-Institute of the ASCE (G-I), and Pile Driving Contractors Association (PDCA).  The program will include technical paper sessions (as poster or podium presentations), panel discussions and debates, indoor exhibits, an outdoor equipment exposition, educational short courses, technical committee meetings, and networking events.

Bridge Foundations, Drilled Shafts, Driven Piles, Foundation Design, Foundation Testing, Load Testing

DBA Engineers Coauthor Cover Story of Latest DFI Magazine

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Cover Image of the Hastings Mississippi River Arch Bridge

The featured article in the July/August 2013 issue of Deep Foundations, the magazine of the Deep Foundations Institute, is coauthored by Dan, Paul, and Rich Lamb, P.E., of the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT).  The article summarizes how load testing has been used successfully as part of the foundation design process by DBA and MnDOT on five major bridge projects along the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers during the last 10 years and the lessons learned from these successive projects.   The featured bridge projects include two major design-build projects, the emergency replacement of the I-35W St. Anthony Falls Bridge (2007) and the Hastings Mississippi River Arch Bridge (2011).  The other traditional design-bid-build projects include the I-494 Wakota Mississippi River Bridge, the U.S. Hwy 52 Lafayette Mississippi River Bridge, and the St Croix River Bridge.  As is often the case, each of these projects presented unique geological and hydrogeological challenges to foundation design – despite the projects all being within 30 miles of each other – including thick layers of highly organic compressible soils overlying bedrock, layers of cobbles and boulders, artesian groundwater conditions, and bedrock ranging from weak weathered sandstone to very hard dolostone.  These varying conditions resulted in the use and testing of a variety of foundations.  Load testing “with a purpose” has proven to be an integral part of the design and construction process on these projects, as the load tests were not simply for verification of a design but provided valuable information used to optimize the designs and provide quality assurance of the construction practices.

Please read the full article here or in a copy of Deep Foundations, a bi-monthly magazine published by the Deep Foundations Institute.   DFI is an international technical association of firms and individuals involved in the deep foundations and related industry.  More information about DFI and how to become a member can be found at www.dfi.org.

Also see our Projects Page for more about some of these projects and our other major projects.