Piledriver Magazine Features APE OctaKong as Cover Story
Post Date: September 21, 2012 at 5:09 pm
Reported From: APE Announcements
Reported From: APE Announcements
The APE OctaKong is still making news in the Deep Foundation Construction industry. The Pile Driving Contractors Association (PDCA) has recently put out the 2012 Q3 edition of their Piledriver Magazine. Take a minute to check out this issue of Piledriver for the accomplishments and details on the project. Once again this project has redefined what the limits are in the pile driving industry, and we can’t thank our business partners, vendors and customers enough for making it all happen!
See the Table of Contents for the issue here: http://www.piledrivers.org/files/9c26f31b-1ad6-4c6c-97d0-11d8b6d85ef7–532d9ca3-4c91-4ff8-ac59-7fbf1f5817a9/table-of-contents-website.pdf
You can see the entire digital copy here: http://www.piledrivers.org/files/9c26f31b-1ad6-4c6c-97d0-11d8b6d85ef7–793e108c-2acf-4857-8874-e4a7dce476d2/q3-content-for-website.pdf
APE 600 Underwater Soil Compaction for HMZ Bridge Sees Phase I Success
The “APE OctaKong” project revolutionized the way cofferdams could be driven at sea when it drove 120 piles at 72 foot in diameter to grade in 6 months. The “Tandem 200-6 Special” project revolutionized the way cell walls could be driven when it drove 240 single cell sheet walls at 37 foot wide. Now another revolution is taking place; Underwater soil compaction.
In between the two man-made islands for the Hong Kong Macao Bridge will be a 5,000m long tunnel. To build the tunnel they will use pre-made concrete sections that will be lowered onto the sea floor. Once all the tunnel sections have been lowered into place the water will be pumped out and a tunnel will be created. However, before the tunnel sections can be lowered down on the sea floor the ground must be hardened and flat. Traditional methods would required a large weight to be repeatedly dropped onto the gravel below until the ground is hardened to the required level, but when compacting soil at sea the accuracy of dropping a weight can be slow and tricky. Therefore, a method was created to use a 40 ton steel plate, that looks like a big clothing iron, connected to a single APE model 600 vibratory hammer. After the gravel is poured on the ocean floor the APE 600, using 550 tons of driving force, compacts the gravel to near perfect flatness. Much like ironing a wrinkled shirt, the sea floor is ironed out.
The only difference being that its down 50m underwater in complete darkness. With special sensors and GPS devices the APE 600’s location is known by operators of the ship above, even during continually changing currents. APE’s hammer are known to have underwater capabilities far superior to other vibratory hammer models in the market, but this job requires the hammer stay underwater for 4-5 days at a time at 50m deep working 24 hours a day. This would be the most rigorous underwater job ever done using APE equipment and the engineering limits of the APE 600 again would be tested, especially because the project will be 18 months long. After 1 month of operation the project has been a complete success. Today the 600 was pulled out of the water after it’s fourth 5 day dive and all indications show zero seawater entered the gearbox and all systems normal. We hope to see more contractors using this method in the future for underwater soil compaction jobs in the future. For more information of this project or information on underwater pile driving please feel free contact David White of APE China.
Hitting the Mark with the 100K Drill
Dewitt Construction had few big holes to drill in Hillsboro OR. Holes were 30” diameter and 85’ deep. The 100K drill was just coming out of production and this was a perfect place to put this newly designed drill. This project in Hillsboro was in one of the INTEL facilities, and was very difficult for myself and Scotto Gray, one of the designers for this Drill, to get on site for an equipment evaluation. Speaking from experience, it is not every day you walk onto a job site with a “prototype” piece of foundation equipment and the super intendant says, with a look a complete satisfaction in his eye, “don’t change a thing, this has got to be the best drill I have ever used”.
So we watched the drill work for a couple of hours, everything going just like clockwork. And as the drill approached the 40’ mark Jeff, the Super on site described the material from 45’ to 85’ as a very stiff clay, resembling “bay mud” as Jeff described it. This material was so sticky and heavy that it would not carry itself up the flight, they would take 10’ bites and bring the flight out of the hole and have to remove it with a mini-excavator. The drill has been running in APE 37 inch U leads which the customer liked so well they are buying this set of leads. There were 60 holes drilled and the 5 inch grouting system was used to pump grout at pressures averaging 1000-1500 psi.
