Giant APE Robot Sighting in San Francisco
Reported From: APE Western (CA)
The Metro Muni Project in San Francisco California is creating a lot of work for the Bay Area Boys. There are a lot of obstacles on this project as they forge ahead with construction. One such obstacle is old timber pile. Yes, thousands of timber piles that have been driven in the past that need to be removed before New foundations can be installed. Vibration is a huge issue here with all the high rise buildings on each side of the project and removing those old timber pile has created a challenge. Not only do the timber pile have to be romoved, but the void of removing these timber pile would create foundation issues for the ajacent buildings. Solution? Drive casing around the existing timber pile, pull the timber pile, back fill the casing and then pull the casing. Easy solution right? With the vast knowledge and experience of APE to help, Yes! One of the problems with extracting timber pile is they need to have about five feet of timber head exposed. Driving a pipe around the timber pile would only case the timber pile to the top, not below the top of the timber pile. Solution? Meet the APE “Metro Muni Optimus Prime”. An APE 200 vibro fitted with an APE caisson beam, two APE beam to clamp adapters, two APE clamp extensions, two short APE five foot beams bolted to the bottom of the extensions and two APE model 100 caisson clamps. This set up enabled the contractor to drive the casing below the top of the timber pile to expose enough of the timber head to clamp onto. Following up Metro Muni Transoid with an APE 64X Excavator mounted vibro fitted with an APE swing arm timber clamp, the timber pile extracted out of the driven casing. Back filling the casing and extracting the casing was the final touch to a difficult solution that didn’t affect the foundations of the neighbor buildings. So the next time you sight something uncommon in the foundation industry, look for the APE!
