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Your First Stop for Piledriving Technology News

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

Pacific Pile and Marine drives 5 foot diameter casing over 200 ft in length with company owned D100-42 for the Alaska Way Viaduct temporary detour off ramps. These ramps are ahead of the new underground tunnel that will be placed under downtown Seattle to replace the old viaduct. There will be 28 piles driven for the ramp pictured in this article. APE offers the only true D-series hammer available on the market.  The efficiency and reliability of the D-series single acting impact hammers have been in service since the early 40’s building the world’s infrastructure.  When a contractor needs reliability they call on APE Equipment.

If you’re in Aberdeen looking towards Gray’s Harbor, there’s a good chance you’ll spot what looks to be like someone has been planting a field of steel towers sticking 80’ out of the ground near a Chevrolet distribution plant. That is the location of the SR 520 pontoons casting basin project. Kiewit- General and WSDOT have teamed up to develop 55-acres of land into what will be the dry dock for the construction of 33 concrete pontoons to refurbish the SR 520 Bridge.  21 of these pontoons will be the largest ever built in Washington State and reach lengths upward of that of a football field. To date, Kiewit has driven over 800 of the 900 18” and 24” diameter pipe piles. They first drove these piles to grade with their D62-22 diesel impact hammer and then cut the piles off internally with a custom made tool. From there, the crew would fill the piles with peat and begin extracting the tops with the APE Model 50 vibro, which cleared a path for their excavators to begin extracting soil out of the basin foundation. On the other end of the jobsite where the crew had already completed excavation, the APE Model 200 vibro is working to drive the retaining walls for the casting basin as well as assembling Kiewit’s work trestle.  I am proud to say that Kiewit- General has reported no major issues with the units in the couple months they have had they equipment.

Imperial Oil, a division company of Exxon Mobile, approved the first phase of the Kearl Oil Sands Project back in 2009. This $8 billion phase of the project is proposed to produce approximately 110,000-barrels-per-day of crude bitumen; a tar-like form of petroleum.  In the later years, this project will provide the energy needs of North America with 4.6 billion barrels of recoverable bitumen.  If you take a jump and a skip north east of Fort McMurray in Alberta, CA you will end up at the Kearl Lake region of Alberta along the Athabasca River. Here, Kiewit drove nearly 1,650 PS-31 sheet piles back in 2010, which provided cofferdam cells for the construction of a pump house to feed the main water plant. They used the APE 200-6 vibro to drive these sheets constantly in below freezing temperatures. Presently, they are in the process of removing 1,200 of the PS-31s- most of which have been sitting for over eight months. Those whom are well versed in the art of pile driving know that extracting piles are sometimes more strenuous than driving them- the PS-31 sheets were no exception to this matter. Prior to the removal of these sheets, Kiewit sought the expertise of our APE employees. We, of course, answered with a few extraction plans, which helped Kiewit remove 35 sheet pairs in a 10 hour shift on their best day. Currently, Kiewit is using one 200-6 vibratory hammer to extract the piles, while a second vibro sits on stand-by as a back -up hammer. Kiewit is nearing the completion of the sheet pile extraction phase and I feel I speak on behalf of all of us here at APE when I say that we are all excited, as well as proud to see this project through the end.

On Sunday, May 15th 2011, at 5pm the world’s largest vibratory hammer drove the world’s largest pile in 7 and a half minutes! American Piledriving Equipment, Inc with cooperation with First Harbor Engineering Communications Bureau drove the first pile for the East island for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge. The first pile was 72 feet in diameter, 131 feet tall, and 500 US tons. The first pile took about 3 hours to place into the exact correct position. The difficultly level of the placement was due to the fact that not only did the pile need to be in the exact correct GPS location, it also needed to be face the correct degree to line up the interlocks on each side of the pile. Later this week the first 37 foot wide shell-pile-walls will be driven in between two of the 72 foot diameter piles. Tensions were very high for the last week as many preparations were needed to get ready for Sunday’s main event. Over 40 top engineers participated in the coordinating of the driving procedure. Everybody was separated into many different teams with a total of 60 people involved directly to making sure the first pile drove successfully.

In addition, most of the top engineers for the bridge project, safety administration, environmental protection agencies, government officials, and top level engineers from the China Construction Communications Bureau came to watch the first pile go into the ground. Over 8 boats and 3 ships were in the vicinity to witness the historic operation. Number 3 marine also had a sand-pile-ship nearby that moved closer to allow for more people to stand and watch. Over 200 people came to see the first pile be driven. Prior to the drive many fireworks were lit off on all the surrounding boats and ships including a ship owned by competitor Number 3 Marine Bureau to wish the project luck.

Jerry Cors (Production manager for APE and the Octa-Kong) myself (MD of APE China and technical lead for the Octa-Kong and Shell-pile-wall project) , Mr. Yang Yun Fu (APE China’s engineer) , Mr. Derek Hu (APE China’s assembly manager) , and Steve Gough (International sales for APE USA and head of China sales) were present to run the machine and verify all went smooth. It was a sight to see and I hope to post more information about the project on the APE CHINA website, including a video of the operation (www.apevibro.cn). I have also made the APE China site in both Chinese and English for better communication. Congratulations to all who were involved! and Congratulations to APE USA.

I want to give a special thank you to everybody who worked on this project and made this day possible.

DeWitt Construction- a long time loyalist to APE, rented a D62 impact hammer package from APE NW to proof some piling for the Army Corps of Engineers. DeWitt was driving about 200 of the 18″ & 24″ -3/8″ wall pipe piles. First they used their Vulcan air hammer with a set of fixed leads to start the piling, but once they realized they needed some more “bang for their buck”, they new exactly who to call. In the end, we got a nice rental- Awesome! Even better though, is the fact that this jobsite was less than a five minute drive North of the competiton’s yard! Needless to say, we had to capitalize on this. So, Josh Greisen and myself loaded up the camera and some t-shirts and took off to visit the jobsite. Check out the video and pictures below!

[tubepress video=”eW9C3lZJH9k”]

West Coast Contractors rented the X13 Impact Hammer in replacement of their ICE 40-S diesel hammer to drive 120-foot spliced 12” pipes for the foundation of a chromite plant in Coos Bay, Oregon. The X13 is a revolutionary design incorporating a diesel hammer-like ram into an enclosed hydraulic impact hammer housing. The idea is to use air compression from the piston to pre-load the pile cap and essentially reduce the chance of breaking the pile top while capitalizing on the energy efficiency of a hydraulic impact hammer as opposed to a traditional diesel hammer. The X13 eventually failed, but it proved its worth when replaced with a J&M 115 hydraulic impact hammer, which immediately began bending the tops of the pipe piles.  The prototype hammer soon returned to the Kent shop to be repaired, but it left the West Coast crew with a glimpse of the future of the pile driving industry.

MKB, an Alaskan construction contractor, was recently on a job in King Cove Alaska (the middle of nowhere) driving piles with an APE 200 Vibratory Driver Extractor. The driver extractor was suffering from some mechanical difficulties and needed some spare parts delivered ASAP to be delivered from the warehouse in Kent Washington. The weight of the spare parts was in excess of 380 pounds. Wayne McWilliams and Erik Erkelens from the APE parts department were able to arrange transport for the parts with Margaret Brunk from Pilot Freight Services. Once the parts made it to Alaska they sat unable to get to the final destination due to the weight of the parts and a lack of transportation to the barge where the hammer was waiting. Wayne McWilliams arranged with PenAir to have a local hovercraft take the parts to the rural job-site so the APE 200 could be fixed and the job completed. Just one of the many ways APE gets the job done!

Darryl, Dan and Ray Heaton are geared up and coming to full swing in their new, top of the line facility on Annacis Island in Delta, BC. Two times a year I have the honor and great privilege to spend a day with the Local 2404 trainees and journeymen. This day’s topic was a discussion about driver/extractors and diesel hammer systems. The basic workings and operation including technical information needed in the choosing of the right equipment for the job. Every time I have this opportunity I leave very proud of both the attendance, interest piledriving and the excellent class participation. I am always amazed at the constructive questions that are asked. I know the Ray, Darryl and the rest of the group there have created an engaging atmosphere that will bring safety and knowledge to the industry.
These people are the next generation of pile bucks and bridge workers and what they bring to the industry is what people like me who live eat sleep and dream piledriving like to see. I want to offer a personal thanks to Ray, Dan and Darryl for the exemplary cooperation and patience for fitting my busy schedule into theirs.
I would never miss an opportunity join you guys in furthering the knowledge and art of piledriving for those who want to learn. You guys have a remarkable organization!

APE was assigned the task of decorating the sea of cranes at the Port of Anchorage. This challenging task took courage and experience. There were environmental issues, huge tides, weather that varied from sunny and beautiful to snowing sideways, not to mention the 90’ to 120’ flimsy flat sheets that needed to be driven. This took the efforts of (4) APE Model 200-6 Vibratory Hammers.