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Your First Stop for Piledriving Technology News

The APE southeastern operation has moved to its new facility at Mulberry, Florida. The new 5 acre facility will give APE the largest and most efficient yard in the industry. Also on site is a huge 100,000 square foot building equipped with overhead cranes This large space will permit all weather servicing of APE equipment.
Part of the facility will be equipped for use in manufacturing APE power units and assembling APE vibros. This will be the first APE manufacturing facility in the eastern US and will greatly ease service and shipment to the Caribbean and South American markets.

The yard will be serviced by two cranes, a 150 ton Bucyrus Erie and a smaller American 5299.

The APE Southeast management and crew wish to thank all of the customers who have believed in us and made this progress possible. We look forward to servicing your requirements from the new facility and extend an open invitation to visit us anytime.

Lane Construction has been chosen as the design/build contractor for a new bridge over the Indian River in Titusville, Florida. The new bridge is named The Maxwell Brewer Bridge, construction began on June 1.
This 3100-ft long, 4-lane bridge will replace a 2-lane drawbridge which is over 50 years old. The new bridge will eliminate traffic congestion; while speeding hurricane evacuation of the nearby Kennedy Space Center and the surrounding areas including the nudist colony at nearby Canaveral Beach.
The foundations for the bridge and approaches include 64 – 36” square piles over 200 feet long each. There are also 84 – 30” square piles of the same length and 118 – 24” piles. The 36” and the 30” piles are all spliced piles. A spliced pile is usually more difficult to drive correctly because the permitted stress specifications are reduced by approximately 50%. To prevent overstressing the pile, the energy going into the pile from the hammer must be strictly controlled. Lane has chosen an APE D-125 diesel hammer for the 36” piles and an APE D-100 diesel hammer for the 30”. An APE D-62 will drive the 24” piles.
The diesel hammers feature the hydraulic start mechanism and the APE hydraulic fuel system. This system permits finite stroke height control which translates into excellent pile stress reduction.
In addition to the diesel hammers, the project will employ APE vibros for the sheet piling and pile template construction. An APE Model 75 hydraulic earth auger will be used to pre-drill for the 24” piles under the approach slabs.
Lane’s bridge superintendent, Paul Roux states: “ We look to APE to assist us with our pile driving. APE equipment arrives at the jobsite properly prepared, performs flawlessly and, if a problem comes up, APE service technicians always provide prompt and effective product support at the jobsite. Project downtime is minimized.”
Pile installation will continue for the balance of 2009 and should be completed by the end of the year. APE will be there to offer support if needed.

PCL is the bid winner for the Lake Underhill Bridge in Orlando Florida. This bridge will be built on 30-inch concrete piles many of which are over 200-feet long with some approaching 300-feet.

Due to the length of the piling, it will be necessary to splice. Some of the longer piles will have two splices in order to get the length. PCL is using the Sure-Lock mechanical splice system.

After weap analysis and a field test, PCL choose the Ape/J&M Model 220 hydraulic hammer to do the work. The 220H was chosen because it has a heavy ram (22,000 pounds) and a totally controllable stroke. For this project, the 22,000-pound ram will be operated at short strokes (up to two feet) in order to minimize the stress in the pile while driving.

It is interesting to note that in Florida, when a pile is spliced, the amount of stress permitted during driving is about one-half of the stress permitted in a non-spliced pile. Therefore, hammer selection becomes a little more difficult and we see increased use of hydraulic hammers because of the excellent stroke control and heavy rams.

The hammer in use at Lake Underhill has also been equipped with an e-Saximeter. This is a device, which electronically transmits data regarding the hammer’s energy output. This information is valuable to the engineers in monitoring pile stress levels and writing hammer operation criteria.

Although the project is just starting, to date, hammer operation has been flawless and the pile stress levels are acceptable.

While driving 130-ft long 30″ diameter steel pipe piles on the West Bay Bridge project near Panama City, Fl., APAC Heavy Division was experiencing much downtime and unreliable performance with a direct drive diesel hammer supplied by one of APE’s competitors.

APAC Equipment Manager, Bradley Briscoe called APE Florida.

A flawlessly prepared APE D-62 diesel pile hammer with an offshore lead set-up was shipped to the jobsite in the Florida panhandle from the APE yard in
Winter Haven, Fl. The APE D-62 not only decreased the driving time per individual pile, but, after driving hundreds of piles, the hammer has had no downtime.
“It starts easily and drives all day” stated Briscoe. These sentiments are echoed by the pile crew which is very happy with the increased production that they are getting.

Once again, an APE diesel hammer proves to be the right tool for a large, high-production project.

When a South Florida contractor was faced with driving 24-inch concrete piles in 60-ft lengths, “no problem” he thought. Weight soon became a huge issue but guys from A.P.E. solved the problem.
A D19-42 was selected in order to to get the 80-ton capacity needed. There were several strange looks as the D-19 arrived at the jobsite. The hammer looked small next to the 24-inch pile and in the 32-inch leads, it looked even smaller. There was some doubt among the pilebucks that this hammer would actually drive the pile. Several minutes later, the pile was down and the doubt removed.
The important lesson here: it’s not the size of your hammer, it’s the know how that gets the job done!

APE’s Model 400U hydraulic impact hammer with a 40 ton ram has successfully driven 54 inch diameter, six inch wall thickness concrete piles in Jacksonville, Florida. The bed cast piles were driven ten feet below minimum tip with only a one foot stroke.

The APE Model 400 has infinitely variable stroke and a visual indicator as well as state of the art digital radio velocity sensors. The new technology is wireless, transmitting digital signals to a hand held computer that stores hammer stroke and energy.

APE makes an even larger hydraulic impact hammer called the 750. The 750 is the same hammer as the 400 but the 750 uses a ram weighing 60 tons while the 400 uses a ram of 40 tons. Both machines run on vegetable hydraulic oil made by Terrasolve.

The APE Model 750 is the largest hammer made in the USA and the Model 400 is the second largest. APE now leads the world in both vibratory and hydraulic impact hammer technology. King Evarts of J&M hydraulics is the lead engineer. King can be reached at 412 720-5175.

APE’s Model 750 with an 120,000 lb ram and six foot six inch stroke (6 foot 6 inches) has successfully tested the questionable piers on the new bridge in Tampa Florida. One pier sank 11 feet while constructing the bridge. The big hammer was placed on the piers and struck the piers with six blows of varying drop height. Some piers moved as much as two inches. The 750 hydraulic system allowed the engineers to lift the ram and hold it into a freeze stroke position while engineers measured the exact drop height. Nylon hammer cushion was used and the striker plate was 38 inch thick forged steel made in USA. The 120,000 forged ram was made in Shanghai, China.

Good job to Steve Cress of APE California and to APE Florida.

Photo credit: Mohamad Hussein – GRL Engineers, Inc.

Jim Bushyeager, Florida Branch Manager for APE, assisted by APE’s California team headed by Steve Cress, have successfully tested questionable drilled shaft foundations in Florida. They used Steve Cress’s Monster pile hammer designed for driving super larger caissons in California for the San Francisco Bay Bridge.

A drilled shaft pier failed causing the bridge to collaspe in April of 2004. It took engineers until December of 2004 to come up with a solution- test them with a big pile hammer. For more details call APE Florida.

Jim Bushyeager has been appointed regional manager of APE Southeast. He joined APE on January of 2004 along with Jim Casavant. Wally Brusmey heads up the APE Jacksonville, Florida branch.

Jim Bushyeager has added Rock Davis (formally with Sunbelt and ICE) to the service department to team up with Dave Husted. Rocky has added two service people to round out the service department.

APE has been expanding the Florida facility since January of 2004 in order to handle the increase in sales and rental activity.

The expansion includes a heavy dose of J&M machines, since both Jim Bushyeager and Jim Casavant have been selling that product line for many years.

Bushyeager, Casavant, and Brumsey are driving to show that APE and J&M are the true innovators of the industry. A good look at the 416B (see the photo with this article) which shows a gun drilled top plate and many new updates to the older 416.

Please call Jim Bushyeager at 386-503-3427 for the lastest developments at APE Southeast.