Kiewit Benicia Bridge
Reported From: APE Western (CA)
Kiewit Pacific of Northern California is one of the biggest General Contractors in the world. The ongoing Benicia Bridge Project has been one of their challenges with huge pipe pile to template piling. In these final stages of the project Kiewit must pull the template piles that are approximately 170’ long with 100’ of embedment into the tough Bay Mud soils. “These pile have been in the ground for over two years with a tremendous set-up” says Ed Taylor, Superintendent of this phase. The tough Merrit Sands proved more than a match for the APE 300 vibro which only proved to shake the portion of pile that wasn’t embedded into the merit sands. Even the new work horse of the industry, the powerful APE model 200-6 proved to be unworthy by itself to do the job as it ripped the tops off of the piles. This test was a prelude to the second phase that will come soon. “We manufactured a welded plate with high flow water jet pump at put 500psi which gave us approximately 300 tons of uplift” Says Ed, “even with this method and the vibro we still could not overcome the merit sands.” Phase two will consist of an APE D62-22 to smack the pile and jar it free of the merit sands and then pull using the APE 200-6 vibro. Look to the next story soon to come.
