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By Robert Small, Amshu Chappa, Ihab Allam

The Biosolids Digester Facilities Project (BDFP) is located in southeast San Francisco. The jobsite is bounded by active Caltrain and Union Pacific Railroad tracks on the west side and the existing Southeast Treatment Plant (SEP) on the north, south and east sides. The existing SEP was constructed in the 1950s and portions of the facility have reached their operational life. The $2 billion BDFP will replace and relocate the outdated existing solids treatment facilities with more reliable, efficient and modern technologies and facilities. In addition, the nearby Bayview and Hunters Point neighborhoods will benefit from the improved odor control. MWH/Webcor, a joint venture, as the construction manager general con- tractor (CMGC) for the project. As part of an alternate delivery method set forth in the prime contract, the CMGC was permitted to propose the use of a core trade subcontractor partner for the SFPUC's approval to provide precon- struction services. The CMGC identified three major scopes (electrical, mechanical and foundation) where a core trade partner would be able to assist

Jan 1, 2023

By Glen M. Bellew, James F. Mehnert

"The Kansas City District-United States Army Corps of Engineers has completed the design modification of a pile supported floodwall located along the Missouri River in Kansas City, Kansas. This deep foundation supported floodwall protects over 2 billion dollars in infrastructure, is approximately 17 ft (5.2 m) tall and is 1,446 ft (440.7 m) long. Design modifications included the addition of a row of drilled shafts and the addition of relief wells. Typically, deep foundation design is controlled by total stress analysis and undrained soil strength. Neither controlled design at this site, where effective stress and drained strength controlled. During high river stages, artesian pressures develop, leading to a reduction in both effective stress and pile capacity. Deep foundation analysis software available to the designer does not allow these effective stress conditions to be directly entered, so a unique way was developed to account for them. A load test was performed to verify the design. During load testing, the supporting ground was unsaturated and had effective stress conditions different from those that controlled the design. A load test evaluation process involving unsaturated soil mechanics was developed and performed. This paper will share both the effective stress design process used and the load test interpretation process performed.INTRODUCTIONThe Fairfax-BPU Floodwall is part of the Fairfax-Jersey Creek Flood Protection Unit in Kansas City, Kansas. The floodwall was built in the 1940s and currently provides Missouri River flood protection for over 2 billion dollars of infrastructure in the Fairfax Industrial Area. The floodwall averages 17 ft (5.2 m) in height, is 1,446 ft (440.7 m) in length and is divided into 35 separate monoliths. The originally constructed foundation support for each of these monoliths typically consisted of three rows of seven tapered steel monotube piles, each roughly 20 ft (6.1 m) in length. All monontube piles are tipped in sand, well above bedrock."

Jan 1, 2016

By Shamsher Prakash

Estimation of vertical load carrying capacity of a single vertical pile under earthquake loading is an important task of a design engineer. Lateral vibration of vertical pile is highly influenced by the magnitude of vertical load. Several load reversal, during earthquake loading introduce gap between pile soil interface which reduces its load carrying capacity and increases lateral motion. This paper presents a simple time domain numerical scheme to estimate the lateral pile response, considering the loss of contact of pile at pile soil interface, during impact and earthquake loading. The motion of the pile is limited in the vertical plane. Time domain has been discretised into small intervals. The non linearity of soil properties has been taken into account by discretised Winklers model with Wolfes frequency independent mass spring dash pot coefficient for geometric damping. Suitable software has been developed which keeps track of the load reversal point of each elements.

Jan 1, 1996

By Douglas Heenan

The fracture orientations were inferred based on theory and previous experience. The fracture pattern was not monitored during the project. Grout volume was recorded at each sleeve port and real time movement monitoring of the building foundation was performed.

Feb 10, 2003

By K. S. Ho

With the aid of the advanced electronic devices and micro-processors, the quality control of deep foundations can be carried out by Non-Destructive Tests (NDT). Three methods are presented here: the Sonic Logging, Vibration and Stress Wave Analysis Methods. The principles, equipments used, testing procedures and applications are fully described. The correlation of these methods with the conventional tests (mechanical coring and loading test) are studied to give a better understanding of the methods. Several case histories with the test results obtained from a number of sites in Hong Kong and overseas are discussed to show how the pile quality can be examined and especially, how to confirm the effectiveness of remedial works on a defective pile. Recommendation on the percentage of piles to be tested are given at the end of the paper by using statistical method.

Jan 1, 2010

By Frank Haehnig, Kurt Kogler

"With a height of 200 m, a crown width of 626 m and a concrete volume of 1.6 million m³, the Kölnbrein Dam in the upper Malta valley in Carinthia / Austria is the largest concrete dam in Austria. Boasting a storage capacity of 200 million m³ with a received water load of 54 MN, this is one of the strongest arch dams in the world.During its construction from 1974 to 1977, the dam was equipped with a comprehensive monitoring system capable of comparing developing deformations and stresses with the design values.With a planned reservoir level of 1,900 m a.s.l. the dam saw the reservoir level of 1,860 m a.s.l. breached in the year 1978. This led to extremely high seepage losses of up to 200 ltr/sec and a rise in the foundation water pressure up to 100% of the dam’s height. These observations were caused by the development of horizontal cracks in the area of the middle dam blocks, between the lowest inspection walkway and the waterside.As a consequence, power plant operations had to significantly be reduced and a number of additional measures were carried out – though these did not lead to the desired sealings.The developer subsequently decided that the dam should undergo a general rehabilitation from 1998 to 1994 in accordance with a concept developed by Professor Lombardi. This concept involved erecting a 50 m high support structure with a concrete volume of 500,000 m³ on the airside of the dam, along with the addition of neoprene bearings to transfer 1.2 million tons of the horizontal load. These measures were able to reduce the deformations in the dam enough so that mostly load-bearing injections into the cracks in the dam’s concrete could successfully be carried out by way of targeted grouting measures using injection resin (RODUR) specifically developed for this purpose.In the years 1998 - 1994, a total of 130,000 m of grouting, monitoring and control drillings were executed, and around 200,000 kg of synthetic resin was injected into the cracks in the dam’s concrete.These measures have ensured the dam‘s uninterrupted operation since 1994. A number of small re- injections were again carried out on the contact surface in the years 2011 and 2012."

Jan 1, 2016

By Ben C. Gerwick

This publication is intended to document recent innovations and technologies that have the best potential for effectively improving the quality of marine foundations while reducing the cost, time and risk of construction. Marine foundations originated in Neolithic times with the Swiss Lake Dwellers who constructed pile-supported houses, safe from invading tribes. The Queen of Babylonia built the first recorded bridge in 1500 BC across the Tigris. The foundations were large flat stones laid on the river bottom. About the same time in India, builders extended their water well techniques to the construction of ?well? foundations in the beds of their rivers. These were really the first open caissons; brick walls were built up in a circular ring while divers excavated sand from the bottom, sometimes at a depth of 100 feet. The Romans extended the clay-filled cribs of the Middle East to shallow cofferdams, which they sealed by underwater concrete made with pozzolanic cement from Mt. Vesuvius.

Jan 1, 2013

By David R. Shields, Michael T. Bracher

"The $330 million (U.S.) Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Yawkey Center for Cancer Care (Yawkey Center) sits in the heart of Boston’s Longwood Medical Area. The Yawkey Center is a cutting-edge cancer care facility that houses Dana-Farber’s adult clinical care and clinical research programs. Standing 14 stories above grade, it includes 7 stories of underground parking extending 75 ft (23 m) below ground. The structure is on a 198 by 186 ft (60 by 57 m) site sandwiched between Dana-Farber’s 13-story Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Research Laboratories Building, the Medical Area Total Energy Plant (MATEP), Jimmy Fund Way, and Brookline Avenue, a busy four lane artery through the heart of the Longwood Medical Area. Together with Simon Design Engineering, the project structural engineer, GEI Consultants designed an innovative foundation and excavation support system to isolate the building from ground vibrations generated by the adjacent MATEP power plant. In effect, the Yawkey Center is a 21-story free-standing structure that starts 7 stories below grade.The MATEP facility provides power for 9 million sq ft (840,000 sq m) of occupied space in the medical area. There are six 32-cylinder diesel engine generators in the facility that produce low-frequency ground vibrations in the 10 Hz range, similar to the natural frequency of typical building elements. The resonant response of the Yawkey Center building structure to these ground vibrations would affect the performance of sensitive medical research equipment and cause an unacceptable environment for clinical care.The soil profile at the site consists of stiff clay, fine sand, glacial till, and bedrock consisting of hard metamorphosed conglomerate. In-situ measurements of ground vibrations performed in boreholes showed that there was little attenuation of the vibrations with depth in the soil layers overlying the bedrock, but the vibration amplitude in the bedrock was markedly lower than in the overlying soil. Based on this data, an innovative foundation system was designed to support the building on bedrock located up to 110 ft (34 m) below ground surface, while isolating it from the surrounding soil. This was done by physically separating the below-grade parking garage floors from the perimeter foundation walls to create a free-standing structure supported on the bedrock"

Jan 1, 2012

By Walter G. Brusey

This paper describes a comprehensive pile test program conducted at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFKIA) to evaluate pile types and design capacities ranging from 890 to 4450 KN (100 to 500 tons). Driven cased piles and drilled shafts, both standard construction and post-grouted after installation, were tested with platform loads extending to 8900 KN (1,000 tons). Alternate load test procedures were developed, extensive structural integrity testing and dynamic load tests were performed on selected shafts. A brief update is provided covering the application of results of the test program to pile selection for support of major structures incorporated in the on going redevelopment of JFKIA.

Jan 1, 2000

By David S. Graham, Paul J. Axtell

Crosshole Sonic Logging (CSL) non-destructive integrity testing identified anomalous readings near the base of a 6.5-foot diameter drilled shaft rock socket. The anomaly was confirmed to be a defect by subsequent coring and core hole camera inspection. A large void and exposed rebar were visually observed in one of the core hole camera inspections. The center of the shaft was then excavated initially with 3-foot diameter tooling and subsequently with 4-foot diameter tooling as part of the remedial actions to address the defect. While excavating with 3-foot diameter tooling, the shaft defect was not encountered. Excavation with 4-foot diameter tooling revealed the defect, a significant void around the majority of the shaft circumference. The void extended radially from the circumference of the 4-foot diameter excavation to beyond the reinforcement cage to the exposed wall of the rock socket around approximately 80 percent of the shaft circumference. CSL results and observations made during remedial shaft investigation and excavation are in good agreement. The shaft defect, located primarily outside of the reinforcement cage, was effectively identified by CSL testing. Although the defect was confirmed by investigative coring, the remedial excavation demonstrates how the investigative coring could have easily missed the defect. This paper shows how CSL results compare to physical observations made during a rare opportunity to characterize the full extent and nature of a drilled shaft defect originally identified as an anomaly by CSL testing. INTRODUCTION The case history presented here pertains to a drilled shaft for a multi-shaft bridge pier in the Midwestern United States. However, the observations presented in this paper are not a result of unique site conditions or the particulars of the project. The lessons learned from this case history are applicable to almost any drilled shaft constructed in the wet. The overall length of the subject shaft is 22 feet including approximately 12 feet of permanently cased, 7-foot diameter shaft extending to bedrock and approximately 10 feet of uncased, 6.5-foot diameter rock socket. The shaft is designed to resist axial and lateral loads and considers the contributions of side and base resistance in the axial design. Six, 2-inch diameter steel Crosshole Sonic Logging (CSL) tubes are include in the shaft. The bedrock at the shaft location includes beds of sandstone, shale, and limestone. The shaft was drilled using conventional drilling equipment and tooling, and water was used as the drilling fluid. Conventional drilled shaft concrete appropriate for underwater tremie-placement was placed via a 10-inch diameter open hopper tremie.

Jan 1, 2019

By Cornelis Van Der Veen

Foundation piles, partly passing through unconsolidated compressible layers, suffer a downward drag that is called negative skin friction. The negative skin friction depends on the movement of the surrounding unconsolidated soil relative to the pile and on the friction between pile and soil as a function of that movement. The negative skin friction adds to the load on the pile. However as it is a function of the pile movement relative to the soil, the amount of negative skin friction to be taken into account to determine the allowable bearing capacity depends on the allowable pile settlement. In this paper this property is indicated by the factor µ. As under the conditions of ultimate pile bearing capacity negative skin friction does not occur, a factor of safety is introduced, which is lower than normal. Eventually a formula for the bearing capacity is given in which µ and both figure. The exact values for given circumstances have to be determined empirically. A few examples are given.

Jan 1, 2010

By A. Partos

It was decided to build a fourteen-storied office building over a six-storied garage and a four-storied office building. The high vertical and horizontal loads required foundations on rock approximately 18m below street level. Drilled piers (caissons) were selected. Eight caissons (1.98m diameter) were installed through the six-storied garage and four caissons from a temporary deck at the location of a former two-storied building. Excavations were done by the slurry method. Proof testing of rock was done before construction by test borings and during construction with a core barrel of small diameter. Quality control measures included telecommunications between ground crews and the equipment operator on the garage roof; records of field observations and testing of bentonite slurry and rock; and a continuous evaluation of all information. Instruments were installed in one caisson to monitor load distributions and curing of concrete.

Jan 1, 2010

By J. S. Ward

In a well-written set of contract documents, the probability of conflicts arising during the course of construction is minimized. However, no matter how complete may be the technical language in the contract plans and specifications, the possibility always exists that conditions may be found in the field that were not anticipated at the time the design was formulated. In foundation engineering work, this is commonly referred to as "differing site conditions." When such a conflict arises in the field, the most expedient manner of resolution would be for the parties to the contract to meet and to amicably resolve the issues rather than use the long and costly adversarial approach of the litigation system currently prevalent in the United States. This rapid solution to the construction conflict can be accomplished through an alternate dispute resolution technique that includes mandatory discussion, mediation and arbitration to be initiated immediately following the inception of the dispute and to be concluded in not more than 100 calendar days from the time the dispute originated.

Jan 1, 2010

By Racquel Nottingham, Marc Mastrantuono

Micropiles often provide a favourable solution for many deep foundation problems especially when significant site constraints such as confined construction sites or vibration limitations have been identified. Often the durability of buried steel elements are heavily scrutinized in order to effectively determine the rates of corrosion and methods to reduce this while still maintaining the structural integrity of the engineered solution. Practices such as sacrificial corrosion loss and the introduction of plastic sheaths have become the go-to methods of corrosion protection. Since the introduction of the micropile, other solutions have been developed, namely protection with an adequate grout encapsulation. This paper will explore corrosion protection of micropiles and the guidelines provided in the published codes and norms. Since few codes define the exact way to verify the durability of these micropiled structures, the existing data is presented and the analysis of grout encapsulation as an effective corrosion protection method is evaluated.

Oct 1, 2022

By Nathan Iverson, Allie Brady

Located on rolling bluffs on the Zumbro River's south fork in Southeast Minnesota, Rochester is the state's third largest city and is the home and birthplace of the renowned Mayo Clinic, a nonprofit academic medical center focused on integrated health care, education and research. Mayo Clinic employs more than 4,500 physicians and scientists with another 58,000 administrative and allied health staff across three major campuses: Rochester, Minnesota; Jacksonville, Florida; and Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona. Originally developed as a stagecoach stop, Rochester has become a national destination for medical care, drawing more than two million visitors annually to Mayo's Minnesota location. Since January 2022, Veit & Company has been working on the construction of the Mayo 1st Ave Tunnel, which comprises three tunnels (pedestrian, utility and services), and the RMC Loading Dock projects in Rochester. These adjacent projects are on the Mayo Clinic's ever-expanding campus and represent its continued dedication to improvement and advancement as a leading medical service provider in the industry.

Jan 1, 2023

By Justin Phillips

The redevelopment of Bow Bells House in London has thrown up a number of challenges that will increasingly be faced by developers of congested sites. In the context of pile reuse this paper examines four key issues: 1. The Developer?s perspective on sustainability, cost, programme and risk management. 2. The nature of pile testing including timing, the balance of extent of intrusive works whilst retaining the existing piles and identifying representative levels of testing. Four key elements of investigation; geometry, integrity, durability and capacity are evaluated. 3. In terms of design this paper supports the adoption of alternative probabilistic methods aligned with communicating to Clients in terms of acceptable ?probability/risk of failure? in place of a factor of safety approach. 4. The project also highlights a number of issues that will require greater attention to maximise the future reuse potential such as foundation load transfer platforms and promoting developments based on early collaborative framework design and contracting across the supply chain.

Jan 1, 2008

By J. P. Powers

Methods for dewatering and the control of ground water for construction and mining are discussed, including open pumping; predrainage with deep wells, wellpoints or other systems; cutoff or exclusion of water by steel sheet piling, slurry concrete walls and slurry trenching, grouting, ground freezing, compressed air, slurry shields and earth pressure balance shields. Criteria are given for the selection among the methods for a given project. Unwanted side effects of dewatering are listed, with procedures for evaluating and avoiding them, by cutoff or artificial recharge.

Jan 1, 2010

By W. Morgan NeSmith

Drilled displacement (DD) piles often develop significantly larger unit shaft resistance values than other drilled or augered pile systems in coarse grained materials. Minimal vibration and limited spoil development are also associated with DD pile installation and these factors are frequently additional financial and/or environmental benefits of the system. The application of DD piles in North America dates to the mid-1990s and their use in the Midwestern United States has been significant, particularly in the past 10 years. The authors have collected an extensive database of DD pile performance in the United States. The alluvial and glacial deposits of the Midwestern U.S. provide conditions where drilled displacement piles perform very efficiently when compared to coastal and residual geologies. This paper presents a summary of the authors? experience regarding installation and performance of DD piles in the Midwestern U.S. Information presented includes summary presentations of DD performance across a range of site conditions as well as a discussion of the relationship of DD performance and installation effort in the Midwest as compared to other geologic settings in the U.S.

Jan 1, 2009

By Rasin Duzceer

In this paper, the results of pile load test on 24 piles from twelve sites are presented. The pile load tests were performed on 14 driven and 10 bored piles of varying diameters and lengths installed in different ground conditions in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan. The purpose of this study is to evaluate and compare the axial capacity of the piles obtained using pile load test interpretation methods. Davisson, Brinch Hansen %80, Chin-Kondner, Shen-Niu, De-Beer, Housel, Mazurkiewicz, Fuller-Hoy, Brinch- Hansen (90%), Corps of Engineers, Butler Hoy and Tangent Intersection methods were used to determine the axial capacity of the piles. Static analysis using FHWA method was performed to predict the axial capacity of the piles. A statistical analysis was performed to compare and quantify the load test interpretation methods. The ratio of interpreted (Qi) to predicted (Qp) pile capacity was compared for each method. For each pile load test and for each interpretation method, the mean and coefficient of variation of (Qi)/ (Qp) were calculated. Among twelve methods investigated, the highest Qi/Qp value was obtained as 1.37 for Chin-Kondner method whereas the lowest Qi/Qp ratio of 0.70 was obtained from De Beer method.

Jan 1, 2002

By Michal Topolnicki

Deep Mixing Series: This article is the second keynote highlighted from DFI's virtual Deep Mixing Conference in 2021, for which Topolnicki served as a committeee co-chair Polish applications of deep soil mixing (DSM) technology occupy a leading position in Europe. That includes use for road and railway embankments, bridges, residential and industrial build- ings, silos, commercial centers, slabs, car parks and storage yards, excavation supports and cut-off walls. In fact, more than 350 road and railway viaducts and 200 wind turbines have been founded nationally on DSM columns, which are firsts on an international scale. This represents more than 1,200 imple- mentations by the Polish geotechnical industry. Considering the need to update DSM design recommendations, this article will attempt to summarize the best practices of wet DSM design and implementation, in particular. It draws on 20 years of experience and will high- light the properties and principles of the design of stabilized soil and lessons learned. Case studies are included to fur- ther understanding of the careful con- siderations needed with this technology.

Apr 1, 2022