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Your First Stop for Piledriving Technology News

Harcon Incorporated drives 36 inch .750 wall piles for the Harrison River Bridge on the southeast side of Lake Pend Oreille in Harrison, Idaho.

This is only the second time this type of pile has been used in the United States. Designed to ensure a stable soil plug in very soft soils, the top of the first splice is vertically slotted around its radius, filled with gravel and the capped with a closed ended pile of the same diameter and thickness. The “slots” allow for the liquid to filter through the gravel and exit the pile just below the closed ended splice.

The APE Model 15/60 was selected specifically for its ram weight. As shown, the overall length of this hammer is 20′-much shorter than anything else of comparable energy in the industry.

Contact your local APE representative for more information.

APE Northeast recently provided specialized equipment for two contractors faced with limited headroom issues. Simpson and Brown of Cranford, NJ is driving 12.75″ pipe piles for the Hoboken Ferry Terminal with 14′ of headroom. They vibrate the piles with the APE 150T vibro outfitted with a forklift mounted suppressor, greatly reducing the height of the unit, and a dunce clamp allowing Simpson & Brown to drive the piles without modification. They drive, splice, drive, and splice until the 150T takes the piles to bedrock. They then pick up the APE 7.5 Low Headroom Hydraulic Impact Hammer, also with a forklift mount, to proof the piles. The APE 7.5, delivering 24,000 foot pounds, is the shortest hydraulic impact hammer in the world at 7.5′.

Northeast Remsco Construction contacted APE NE to install an APE Model 7.2 Low Headroom Hydraulic Impact Hammer on a CAT 345. The job involved retrofitting the Madison, NJ train station to be ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant. The issue was live overhead lines. The APE NE service department expertly designed and fabricated a specialized leader system that pinned directly to the excavator boom. The system worked perfectly, enabling Northeast Remsco to easily drive the 24″ pipe piles.

Please contact Paul Kuzik @ 201-400-8356 for more information.

Mike Brenner of Vortex Marine Construction understands obstacles and when recently faced with an obstacle of huge proportions Mike went into action! Driving sheet pile at the Port of Oakland into tough Merit Sands is never an easy job, especially when driving sheet pile 35 feet under water against an existing dock. Using a vibro to set the sheets with a 30 foot long follower bolted to the bottom, Vortex would then drive the pile to the tip elevation using a single acting diesel impact hammer with a 60 foot long follower. This method enables them to place the face of the sheets up against the existing dock and drive them down keeping them in the exact location needed. This is common practice and works well. However, there is a slight problem with this operation. The impact of the diesel hammer was reaching upwards of 210+DBA 40 feet away and 20 feet deep under water. This was scaring the fish in the port and the DBA’s had to be reduced to an acceptable 185 DBA.
This is where Mike Brenner went into action. Taking into consideration the equipment being used on the job and calculating what it would take to drive the sheet pile in the tough Merit Sands, Mike called APE. “Build me a 60 foot long follower, make it strong enough to drive under a APE model 400B Vibro and mount it in a set of swinging leads to maximize the stabilization for driving” says Mike Brenner. “and with 13,000inlbs of eccentric moment and 55,000lbs of driving monster, we can get these sheets down and meet the DBA requirements!” That is exactly what APE did! Using the 400B vibro (King Kong) and coupling it up to a 990 horse power unit (APE model 990) and fabricating a follower 60 feet long using a beam with 375lbs per foot, this beast is the tool to get the job done. And all at 175 DBA. The fish can now swim safely in the Port of Oakland and Vortex can continue to drive sheet pile on their project. The results? Success! When a superintendent like Mike Brenner talks, APE listens! Thanks Mike, Jason, Tony, Ben and the rest of the Vortex crew that enabled this project to be another joint venture success!

The APE 170VM vibratory hammer was called to duty recently to extract sheets in a new sewage treatment plant in Liverpool NY.

The circular cofferdam was previously driven and a concrete tank formed and built inside of the excavation.

The desire to limit the vibrations generated when pulling the sheets came not from the new structure but from the old structures nearby that are still in service until the new plant comes on line.

Since a variable moment hammer starts and stops spinning while the eccentrics are phased out of time, no low end vibrations occur. The vibrations that are generated when the hammer starts and stops at lower frequency are the ones that generate the highest peak particle velocity (ppv).

The 170VM pulled all sheets while keeping the ppv below that maximum allowable.