APE News |

Your First Stop for Piledriving Technology News

APE has had a long lasting commitment to discovering new ways to benefit the foundation market and the needs of our customers. After extensive R&D we are excited to release the Polar Penetrator series of specialized drill bits. These bits are designed to be run with air that is fed through cutouts in the bits base, the air is ushered through these ports to the cutter face in order keep the cutting plain clear and working hard to reach your final depth. The Polar Penetrator bits can make quick work of frozen dense clays and tundra, as well as tightly consolidated silts and sands of drier climates. These bits will counteract the balling effect that plugs up other forms of drilling and will show less wear due to the quick evacuation of the cuttings away from the teeth. Not to cut short the advantages presented by the traditional CFA, Drag, Tri-cone and Pressure Digger bits, but this bit will add a formidable tool to your arsenal in the war against unforgiving soils. APE’s HD line of drills are a great option to run these bits coupled with our custom Quickloc Drill Stems.

Please take a moment CLICK HERE view the attached link to find out more about APE’s new addition to our foundation and drilling tools.

In January 2013, Imco General approached me with their dilemma- On this Everett, WA Highway job, they have limited space to properly sling up and drive their PZ sheet piles. So they need to be able to pick, load, and drive the sheets in one fell swoop with one piece of equipment, an operator, and a couple of ground guys. The obvious choice? The APE RoboVibe vibratory driver and extractor. With this unique excavator-mounted vibro, they would be able to pick up the sheets from the ground with the patented side-grip clamps and drive them from either the side or the top of their sheets.  After some short talk of the advantages of the RoboVibe over the HMC SP-60 Sonic SideGrip Hammer, Imco General Construction finalized the purchase and received their brand new APE RoboVibe in early April.  This is the first and only RoboVibe purchased in the Pacific Northwest. I had the personal pleasure of visiting Imco General at their Ferndale, WA office/yard and had the opportunity to observe the RoboVibe in action as they drove some PZC-26 sheet piles in their yard with their John Deere 330 excavator. This was an interesting as well as a very educational experience as I have never had the opportunity to see a RoboVibe in action before.

Imco General was satisfied as well as impressed with the final product; and they will be utilizing it on the Everett Highway job this upcoming May. They will also be renting an APE Model 50 Vibro Hammer to remove the sheets. Imco will be hanging the 50 vibro from an excavator and follow behind the RoboVibe for extraction. I hope to make it out to the jobsite in the upcoming month and will be providing an update on this job with photos.

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.

APE has developed Helical Pile systems that will change the nature of helical pile as they are seen by the deep foundations industry. Helical piles have been for most of their history produced by manufacturers who have focused on small diameter screw anchors. These anchors began as tie downs for cables supporting power poles and evolved into small diameter screw anchors used on low capacity foundations. The bolt together sections, homemade driving equipment and the lack of main stream engineering made them suspect and generally unaccepted by the deep foundation industry.

As the industry evolved a core group of manufacturers began to generate larger anchors and more sophisticated drilling equipment. Unfortunately the bolt together sections and lack of involvement by the greater community of deep foundation contractors has left helical piers or anchors, filling an insignificant niche in the industry. Coupled with engineering that is unsupported by the most of the geophysical engineering community. A push for over ten years to correlate drive torque to load capacity of the anchors has been refuted by the general community of engineers and unsupported by many of the people involved in the larger diameter higher energy helical pile industry.

APE has embarked on a program that encompasses material manufacture and supply, equipment development and engineering that relies on the standard principles for deep foundations developed by engineers for over 900 years since the Romans were driving piles in Europe. Additionally APE has added patented drive and coupling technology developed by contractors in the Northwest. This technology has been proven over hundreds of thousands of feet of helical pile, that have been load tested, statically and dynamically hundreds of times. APE has purchased this technology and APE engineers added their years of experience to develop the first mainstream equipment to be specifically designed to install helical piles.

Socket Drive Technology

If you have ever used a socket to turn a bolt you can understand why the APE socket drive technology is simple, reliable and the best way to transmit torque into a pile to drive it. APE has patents on external Socket and internal Allen wrench type drives. Any drilling equipment can be easily modified to use the socket drive technology.

Threaded and Coupled Pile Sections

APE has developed material that uses high strength oil field casings that are threaded and coupled with an APE patented coupler. This connection continues the pile shaft sectional strength through the connection in tension, compression and bending. The connection can be made in less than a minute and makes low headroom work simple. This connection also allows for any depth of pile. Very deep drives are not a restriction for this system. Without the socket drive technology you cannot make up threaded connections, the other systems using large pins to drive the pile keep the material connected to the drill and do not allow the operator to put the pin (male thread) into the female coupler without a high percentage of cross threaded connections.

The APE material is produced under the most stringent standards in the world. APE’s supplier is API ISO certified and API certified for threading and welding on the high strength DOM casings used by APE. These casings have yields of 80,000 psi to 110,000 psi and a wall thickness of min .400 on all size ranges. You cannot produce this material without these certifications. APE’s global reach and buying power allows us to bring this material to market at prices competitive to products of far less quality.

High Pressure Grouting

APE is introducing true high pressure grouting at the tip of the pile. This can be accomplished with a push out tip that is currently approved by Caltrans as a micro-pile or using ports located at the pile tip to grout while installing. Grouting pile with helical flights gives dramatic improvements in load capacity even in poor soils.

Excavator Mounted Helical Pile Drivers

APE is pioneering excavator mounted drills that handle the pile from the ground and easily connect threaded sections. These high power systems (up to 400,000 ft lbs of torque) are powerful fast systems that show up to the job ready to work after unloading from the trailer. No more power unit, this is self-contained and these drills can be attached to rental equipment in a couple hours with no intrusion into the electrical or hydraulic systems of the excavator. APE has drills for excavators from 28,000 lb class to the biggest machine you can find.

Large OD Helical Pile

APE has developed large diameter shafts up to 42″ in diameter with 1″ wall 80,000 yield DSAW pipe. These large helical are helping designers overcome the endangered species issues that are crippling steel pile driving in marine environments.

Ground Loop Technology

This technology works with standard ground source heat pumps (GSHP) and allows the Helical Pile Foundation to be the ground loop. By heating and cooling the building with the most efficient green energy technology on the market, the foundation qualifies for a 10% on commercial, and 30% on residential tax credit. The foundation will also pay for itself in energy savings in just a few years.

Remote access with the excavator mounted equipment, high capacities with pressure grouting, unparalleled low overhead access and deep drives with the threaded connections, the first material and equipment made for helical pile, socket drive technology, large OD pile that do not endanger marine life. Engineering that fits into the mainstream of the geophysical engineering world, and foundations that heat and cool the building with technology that the DOE dubbed “The no#1 green technology for the 21st century” APE has changed the face of helical piles and deep foundations.

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.

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.

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.

Along with the on-going demolition of the Alaska way viaduct, a Seattle landmark second only to the Space Needle, rises a new attraction on Pier 57- a 175-foot-tall Ferris wheel. Pier 57 was originally built in 1902 as a rail-loading facility for a saw mill. Today, it houses a plethora of marine-oriented shops, restaurants, and even an antique carousel. Hal Griffith, owner of Pier 57, fears losing business due to the viaduct replacement and hopes a new waterfront attraction will keep the publics’ interest alive. With the loss of the Fun Forest at the Seattle Center, this will be the only Ferris wheel available in the city. Once completed with 41 air conditioned gondolas, it should prove to be quite an accommodating attraction to locals and tourists alike.

Manson Construction, a major player here in the PNW, was chosen to drive the foundation piles of this soon-to-be “landmark” on the water ward side of the existing pier. With a total of 53- 36” x .5” wall and 30” x .625” wall pipe piles on deck, the Manson crew set out to drive these piles with the APE Super Kong.  What else would you want driving the piles for a 175-foot marine based Ferris wheel, right?

So far, the Manson crew has driven a dozen test piles. With some fine tuning of the equipment to account for the infamous Glacial till the Northwest is known for, the 150’ piles are down to grade. Some were driven only a couple of feet away from the Fisherman’s Restaurant & Bar. Needless to say, some diners became spectators and spectators became diners.  Fair trade.

Today, the Manson crew is running production piles. Most are on 4:1 fore and aft batters. To accommodate the tight driving schedule and the layout of the pile driving grid, APE and Manson teamed up to outfit the Super Kong with a custom vibro sled fit for Manson’s leader system, as well as a custom swing arm pile gate. More pictures and updates to come!