APE News |

Your First Stop for Piledriving Technology News

This year, American Piledriving Equipment is sponsoring a snowmobile team in the 2015 Iron Dog Snowmobile Race – the world’s longest and toughest snowmobile competition. The race is over 2,000 miles long, and parts of the race follow the famous Iditarod Trail. The race begins at Big Lake (near Anchorage), heads west to Nome, then doubles back eastward and finishes in Fairbanks.

APE is sponsoring Team 56 in the race. The Team 56 riders are Bernie Droege and Mark Ivy, both lifetime Alaskans. The drivers are on two-sled teams for safety as they travel through remote areas of the Alaskan Wilderness. In total, the race lasts about one week.

CLICK HERE for all the information about Team 56 (Please allow a few seconds for post to load).

Iron Dog Team 56

It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of our Vice President, great friend, and colleague for the past 20 years, Dave Yingling. Dave had been battling cancer for the past many weeks. Our sincerest condolences go out to Lindsey Joy and the rest of Dave’s family.

Obituary
David Alan Yingling, 45 years young, resident of Auburn, Washington passed away on the 10th day of January 2013 at his residence due to complications from cancer. David was born in Vancouver, Washington, on the 24th of June 1967, the son of Donald Raymond Yingling and Cheryl Lou Terner. David attended South Albany High School graduated in 1985.
David and his soul mate Lindsey Jo Joy recently celebrated the birth of his only son on March 27, 2012. He spent his working career in Kent, WA working for American Pile Driving Equipment Inc. serving as the company’s vice president. David was proceeded in death by his mother, Cheryl Lou Weekes and is survived by his soul mate  Lindsey Jo Joy; his father, Donald Raymond Yingling; his sisters, Teresa Buonocore and Christina Baze; his three children, Megan Ashley Yingling (23) Kelsey Noel Wolfinger (21) and David Alan Yingling Jr (9 months); his grandson, Renton Jamie Hazard (5) and all who loved him. A memorial service will be held Tuesday January 15th at 12:00PM at LifeWay Church, 5015 SW Dash Point Road, Federal Way. Arrangements by Yahn and Son Funeral Home, Auburn. A memorial fund has been set up for David Jr. Please send contributions to American Piledriving Equipment Inc.
P.O. Box 88730 Seattle, WA. Please make checks payable to David A. Yingling Jr.

Service:
Funeral Service: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 at 12 noon at Life Way Christian Church, 5015 S.W. Dash Point Road, Federal Way

To visit Dave’s obituary go to www.yahnandson.com, once there family can sign the guest book and upload any photos you have of Dave. Friends and coworkers feel free to leave comments and memories here on the APE website below the article.

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

Penny Sisson, Office Manager and Wally Brumsey, Southeast Sales Representative worked with Mark Guin with Scott Bridge regarding the CSXT Mobile River Bridge project in Alabama. The APE Service team, especially Felton Wells,  spent a good amount of time installing and starting up the equipment with the customer. Here we have some pictures and good words from Mark Guin in regards to the APE equipment Scott Bridge used on the job:

Here is the Kong getting ready. The second picture is the entire bridge that was built and stored on the pilings we were trying to get out. Look at the size of the crane next to the new bridge and it puts it in perspective. The third picture is an aerial of the same. The fourth pic is the original turning type bridge between the towers that are going to raise up and down vertically the new bridge. The fifth is the old bridge turned to allow river traffic. The last picture is the new bridge put in place. The two locations are 6 miles apart.  At any rate thanks for all your help. It is great to work with folks like yourself and Wally.

A big thanks to the APE team down in Florida and Mark Guin for providing the pictures and commentary, we hope to do more business with Scott Bridge in the future. Wally Brumsey sends a special thanks to Mike Cribbs and Felton Wells for a job well done.

Back in April APE attended the PDCA Annual International Conference and Expo from April 25 -27th. During the conference APE was given the honor of receiving the project of the year award for projects over 5 million. The project APE received the award for was the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge where the OctaKong Vibratory Driver Extractor was used to drive the 72″ perimeter piles for the reclaimed islands. The OctaKong has finished the two island and has been taken apart into 8 Super Kong Vibratory Driver Extractors and is being used in multiple ways throughout the foundation work of the bridge. We want to send a big thanks out to everyone who made the project a reality, and to the PDCA for noticing our companies largest accomplishment to date.

APE was given the opportunity to present at DFI’s 2012 Superpile on the benefits, challenges and complexities of driving large diameter piles. The presentation was given by David White, the Managing Director of APE China. Along with Steve Gough, the APE China team and APE Corporate team, we all made the foundation work of Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge a reality. They worked tirelessly to design, negotiate and deliver the “OctaKong”, the largest Vibratory Driver Extractor to ever be seen on planet earth.

David White wrote an article back in December detailing the role that APE and our team played in constructing the foundation for the reclaimed islands of the bridge, this was after the final pile had been driven. During the process we have written several more articles with details on the construction of the bridge and APE’s continued involvement. We look forward to what future projects will bring with the benefits seen through the use of large diameter piles.

[tubepress video=”U18gkY-rSP4″]

Below are the links to all of the articles we have written over the past year on the OctaKong and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge:

• Final 72′ Pile Driven to Grade, OctaKong Project Finished
• APE Drives the World’s Largest Pile!
• APE China Successfully Drove the World’s Largest Sheet Pile
• Octakong and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge
• APE China Successfully Tests Tandem 200-6
• When the Competition Says “They Can Do It”… Talk to Someone Who Has “DONE IT” Call APE!

We owe a big thanks to Shane McWhirk from Peak Oilfield Service and the APE Parts Department for getting us this story and pictures from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.  The APE 200-6 was used successfully in cold temperatures (-10 F thru -35 F) for driving the piles for Peak Oilfield Service’s job.  The Hydraulic tank was insulated and heated with heat pads that were supplied electricity from a generator.  Permafrost layers are between 6 to 15 feet making driving  some of the toughest a vibratory driver/extractor could encounter.  A 30 year crane operator from Florida that has put thousands of piles in the ground compares the permafrost layers to granite.

We recently received the 2012 January – February issue of International Construction Magazine, and we are more than pleased to see an article on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge project where the APE OctaKong was driving the largest diameter piles every driven in history. For those of you unfamiliar with the project, here is a rundown on the scope of the project courtesy of Wikipedia:

“The in-construction Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is a series of bridges and tunnels that will connect Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai, three major cities situated on the Pearl River Delta in southern China. The proposed 50 km (31 mi) link is expected to cost US$10.7 billion.[citation needed] With its length, it would become one of the landmarks within the area. The longest bridge section will be 22.8 km (14.2 mi) long and include three cable-stayed spans between 280 m (920 ft) and 460 m (1,510 ft).[1][2] Construction formally began on 15 December 2009.[3] The bridge is due for completion in 2016.”

David White, Director of Operations of the APE China Office and Manufacturing facility wrote an article back in December detailing the role that APE and our team played in constructing the foundation for the reclaimed islands of the bridge, this was after the final pile had been driven. During the process we have written several more articles with details on the construction of the bridge and APE’s continued involvement. We look forward to helping the Chinese build quality foundations for any of their coming construction projects. Below are the links to all of the articles we have written over the past year on the OctaKong and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge:

• Final 72′ Pile Driven to Grade, OctaKong Project Finished
• APE Drives the World’s Largest Pile!
• APE China Successfully Drove the World’s Largest Sheet Pile
• Octakong and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge
• APE China Successfully Tests Tandem 200-6
• When the Competition Says “They Can Do It”… Talk to Someone Who Has “DONE IT” Call APE!

The Seattle Times just posted a news article this morning about the new 520 floating bridge project spanning Lake Washington just east of Seattle. The bridge has been in development for last couple years, with dry dock construction for the pontoon sections taking place in Aberdeen Washington (See Chris Wang’s article on the dry docks here). Construction on the actual bridge site has been in the prepping phases and is now ready for major foundation work which is slated to start next week.

The coming weeks will include huge foundations and concrete spans near shore, twin sloping transition spans that reach down to the lake, floating pontoons, and road decks fastened upon them. APE will be on the scene with a 600 Vibratory Driver extractor, the largest vibratory pile driver in the APE fleet will be pulling the outer casing for 12.5′ drilled shafts. We will also see an APE 200-6 driving the sheet piles for the cofferdams. See the Seattle Times new article here http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2017862072_520bridge29m.html for more details.

At APE today we are taking a moment to recognize one our most important vendors, Fastenal. They are responsible for many of the parts involved in putting together a diesel impact hammer, vibratory driver extractor etc. Jim Winn is our Fastenal representative at the APE headquarters here in Kent WA. For the most part he’s an all around good guy, especially when he went down to Florida for a Fastenal convention and had a chance to get a picture and autograph with Carl Edwards. For those who don’t know, Carl Edwards is the 2nd place driver in the Sprint Cup Series, following Tony Stewart. Jim Winn took his opportunity with Carl Edwards and got him to take a photograph with him holding a sign saying “GO APE!”. All of us at APE have to say (including Wayne), that’s pretty cool Jim, much appreciated!

Sprint Cup Series Rankings: http://www.nascar.com/races/cup/2011/data/standings.html