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Your First Stop for Piledriving Technology News

APE Mid-Atlantic in Virginia Beach Virginia boasts of the largest impact hammer test stands on the East Coast. It’s mandatory ALL APE Branches have operating test stands and that all impact hammers are run & tested before going out to a job. Our test stand can test any impact hammer large or small, diesel, air / steam, or hydraulic. We also have one for vibratory hammers. APE Mid-Atlantic offers free hammer testing & evaluation. If you are not currently dealing with APE check to see if your current pile equipment supplier has a test stand, if so how big ? If they don’t have one why are you dealing with them ? Call any one of your closest APE Branches for details. GO APE !

Some projects are so senstive, so secret that we just can’t talk about them. Such is the case with several projects going on in the Southeast right now. Top Secret Naval projects, Highly secure and confidential LNG applications, and Miltary Bomb Plant Installitions all require contractors to do things a little differently. There is no room for delays, shut-downs or mis-haps, thats why contractors call on American Piledriving Equipment. A.P.E. will not only supply top of the line equipment, but will provide complete support and service second to none.
If we can give contractors peace of mind on these types of projects, imagine how comfortable you will be with A.P.E. equipment on your job!

Misener Marine Construction has come all the way from Tampa Florida to Virginia Beach VA. to install a new 48″ pipe line for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers & the city of Virginia Beach VA. The new line will carry storm water from the streets of the beach out into the Atlantic ocean some 2200 feet at a depth of approx. 35 feet. Their 1st order of work was to install a temporary work trestle that extends in to the deeper water off the beach about 730ft. This was done with an APE 300 vibro hammer and an APE D30 diesel hammer. Next was to form & pour a new outlet box and begin driving the sheetpile cell that will house the new pipe. All is rolling along as planned, Misener has some of the best marine construction people in this business, Tim Linden / Project Manager & Larry Thornton / Construction Manager are the best this industry has to offer, and they have a great staff as well. Misener Marine has been doing this type of work since the early 1950’s and have done pipelines in water as deep as 980 feet off the coast of Puerto Rico. These guys really are experts! APE wishes Misener Marine a safe and productive project.

Blakeslee Arpaia & Chapman was founded over 160 years ago and has evolved into a multi-faceted company that is often asked to tackle challenging projects that require unique solutions.

Recently they were asked to drive h-piles at a Connecticut refinery for a gas pipeline relocation. The only problem was that the pipeline was to be routed along the edge of the shoreline in an area where getting heavy equipment into was impossible. This meant that the piles would need to be driven from the water. However the water was shallow, even at high tide, and was too shallow to allow any work to be done at low tide.

Because the water level was only high enough for a barge at high tide, a barge with a large crane would have to be floated in and all of the work would have to be done while the tide was high. The barge would then need to be taken out to deeper water at low tide.

However, a crane, even a large one, has its limits when boomed out such a distance. This created a problem with coming up with a hammer and leads to drive the pile. Blakeslee Arpaia & Chapman approached APE with this dilema and the solution recommended was an APE D8 diesel hammer in 21″ leads. This combination gave them a driving system that was light enough to allow them to reach from a barge to drive the h-piles on shore with their Manitowoc 3950 crane.

Hammer after hammer is pouring into the Far East creating a wake felt throughout S.E. Asia. Jimmy Teoh and his company, Foundation Associates Engineering, have been taking over the foundation industry by storm. Here are photos taken recently at the Con-Expo show in Las Vegas. Pictured are Jimmy Teoh, his associate P.H., along with John Konwick, Paul Kuzik, Erik Erkelens, and Scott Gray of APE/J&M posing with 2 of the dozens of hammers purchased By F&A over the past year.

Steve Gough, Managing Director for APE International Sales, helps introduce the “Fat Man 220” the largest diesel hammer in the world to a contractor’s party held in Shanghai, China. The D220 (Fat Man) operated flawlessly while all the major Chinese pile contractors cheered. This was a historical moment for Steve Gough and for APE and SEMW. The D220 was sold to China Oil. Steve kissed the Fat Man D220 to give it good luck on its first job. The D220 has a twenty-two metric ton ram and is designed to replace large troublesome hydraulic hammers. The D220’s smaller brother, the D180 is currently driving piles for the new San Francisco Bay Bridge and another D180 just finished the piles for the Pitt River Bridge in Vancouver BC- Two of the largest pile jobs in the world. Thanks to Mr. Wong and Mr. Gong for innovations that have changed the world of pile driving forever.

It sounds like another plot to a science fiction movie, but there is no Godzilla written into this script. There is only the evil Ohio River, large diameter pipe piles, and many many panel walls consisting of 5 flat sheetpiles that need to be vanquished by our hero, King Kong.

APE supplied 2 King Kongs to the Olmsted Dam project that Washington Group and Alberici are joint ventured on in Olmsted, Illinois on the Ohio River. This project is the last part of the Olmsted Lock and Dam replacement. Construction of the lock was completed in a previous project phase several years ago, and is visible in one of the attached pictures.

APE has supplied 2 complete King Kongs that have special designed multi clamp systems that will enable the hammer to drive wall segments that consist of five PS27.5 flat sheetpiles at the same time, as well as several caisson beam and clamp combinations.

Dutra Construction of Northern California knows what it takes to get the job done! Especially when it comes to pulling concrete pile. They also know where to go to get the greatest foundation equipment in the world! APE! Why? As you can see in the pictures, Dutra Construction is one of the leading Marine Contractors in California as they pull fifty year old concrete pile in the Oakland Harbor. “These pile have been in the ground for a long time” says Terry Murray, Piledriving Superintendent for Dutra. “These are not even pre-stressed concrete pile and I didn’t know how they would react to vibrating them out.” Terry consulted with Steve Cress of APE California to come up with a plan of action. “I tried a dry pull on a couple of these pile and all they did was break” Terry said. So with this in mind Dutra attacked the pulling with a plan. The plan was to use the APE 300 vibro and the patented APE concrete clamp hooked up to the APE 630 power unit pushing 630 horses to get the job done. “We chose the 300 vibro because it has a tremendous amount of amplitude and that is what was needed to overcome the deflection of these old concrete piles” says Steve. Pulling concrete pile is an art Terry found out, and then perfected as he got the groove of it. “You can’t just grab the pile and yank it out” he says. “You need to handle it with finesse, easing into the pulling by lowering the engine rpm’s and “waking” the pile up first! After this the pulling is a dream!” Terry Murray was excited as he pulled pile after pile after pile without any complications. One of Terry’s best days in his life was pulling over one-hundred concrete pile in one day! That is an all time record ever recoded in piledriving history! That is what APE is all about, working with contractors like Dutra Construction, with people like Terry Murray to make PILEDRIVING HISTORY!

Today history was made. The largest diesel hammer in the world, the APE/SEMW 220, with a ram weight of 22 metric tons was successfully tested and sold to an off shore oil company.

The APE/SEMW D220 diesel hammer is a full two metric tons larger than Delmag’s old Model 200. In addition, the D220 has superior thermal expansion design over the Delmag D200.

APE/SEMW’s marketing strategy is to build larger diesel hammers as a low cost replacement of the much more expensive hydraulic hammers offered by IHC and Menck.

“Diesel hammers have always been superior to hydraulic hammers when it comes to initial cost, parts replacement, simplicity in operation, and actual driving ability.” “The problem has been a lack of a larger diesel hammer to compete with the larger hydraulic hammers. We have solved this by developing these massive new super larger diesel hammers” says John White, President of APE.

APE’s new monster size diesel hammers are changing the way big bridges are being built in the USA and Canada. On the San Francisco Bay bridge, the largest pile job in the USA, all piles are being driven by the APE D180 rather than a European hydraulic hammer. Add to this the fact that Canada’s largest pile project, the Pitt River Bridge, located in Vancouver, BC is also using an APE D180.

Here comes the largest diesel hammer of all, the APE D220. Its first job is to drive piles for an oil project in China. All three of these projects would have been using hydraulic impact hammers if not for the vision of APE.

APE stocks D180 diesel hammers in its USA rental fleet. See a new D180 on display at ConExpo.

Pushing and pulling is what Rohrscheib Caissons needed to do in two different locations this winter. Up to 8 ft. diameter caissons needed to be driven and extracted. Kevin Rohrscheib called APE/J&M N.E. looking for two big hammers for the job. Two J&M 66/80’s went to Michigan and to Ohio to take on the snow and take care of business.