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Your First Stop for Piledriving Technology News

Don Schroeder with Wilder Construction and crew install the temporary bridge piles in the wet lands outside Carnation, WA. The main foundations will be drilled shafts. The way the crew tackled the batter piles on the work trestle is very creative. Using a swinging set of leads and a simple pin arrangement, the batter piles installed very smoothly.

In addition to the swinging leads, there is a pile monkey and fixed pile gate holding the pile in the leads.

For more information on APE lead systems feel free to contact us here at the main office or one of our satellite locations.

An APE Model D36 drives pipe piles for a new oil platform in the Caspian Sea. The jobsite is in Turkmenistan. APE diesels are ISO 9002 and incorporate new technology not available anywhere else. For more details call APE at 253-872-0141 USA

HG Harders took delivery of their new APE 150T Vibro with the APE 350 Power unit and 150 Sheet / H-pile clamp. HG Harders & Sons perform Marine construction projects throughout the Panhandle region of Western Florida. Owner Capt Holden Harders and Vice President Jay Costello are very good friends and I am very proud they chose the APE 150T/ 350 P.U. for this major purchase. APE Southeast will do everything possible to provide quality service on this new purchase for years to come. I am sure American Piledriving’s-best in the industry-New Equipment Warranty program was a deciding factor. Thank you to all the fine people at HG Harders & Sons for this purchase.

Shown here, is the 150T in action.

Project site: Fujian Province, China

Equipment: APE model 200 vibro

Applications: Underground Retaining Wall for high rise building construction

Technology: Xie’s Patented Barrel Pile Technology

Pile information:

• O.D. 1500 (59 inches)
• I.D. 1100 (43 inches)
• Wall thickness: 200 mm (8 inches)

Length: 16 meter – 17 meter (56 feet)

Number of Piles: 200

Comment: Revolutionary Pile driving technology for soft soil foundations. The pile quality is comparable to driven cylinder piles.

Karl Pacik, shown here enjoying his summer holiday is doing what typical Europeans do in the summertime…go on holiday and tell we Americans to “get along without me for a month”. Well APE managed without Karl for a full month. Karl, get back to work! (you look fantastic on that bike)

Sincerely,

John L. White
President, APE/J&M

Note: Photo was used without permission

When a South Florida contractor was faced with driving 24-inch concrete piles in 60-ft lengths, “no problem” he thought. Weight soon became a huge issue but guys from A.P.E. solved the problem.
A D19-42 was selected in order to to get the 80-ton capacity needed. There were several strange looks as the D-19 arrived at the jobsite. The hammer looked small next to the 24-inch pile and in the 32-inch leads, it looked even smaller. There was some doubt among the pilebucks that this hammer would actually drive the pile. Several minutes later, the pile was down and the doubt removed.
The important lesson here: it’s not the size of your hammer, it’s the know how that gets the job done!

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.

When Linde-Griffith Construction of Newark, NJ needed a vibro to drive sheet pile near an existing bridge, they called APE Northeast for the APE 250 Variable Moment Vibro. The APE Variable Moment vibros are designed to minimize radial vibration in the soil during start up and shut down of the vibro, when these vibrations are at the highest levels during operation.

For more info call Paul Kuzik at 201-400-8356.

Toronto:

Recently Brooks Dean of Dean Construction called with an immediate need for a vibro to drive sheet piles into Toronto Harbor. Dean, among several other foundation contractors, have been involved in the ongoing revitalization and expansion of the Toronto waterfront. In this instance sheets are being driven to shore the waterfront for installation of a new ferry boat dock that will access the Toronto Public Airport located on a small island in Lake Ontario. A J&M 216 was sent in and made short work of the sheet piles.
This past January APE sent in a D19 the drive piles for an extension of the existing boardwalk which lines the beautiful waterfront area. Thanks again to Dean for coming to APE/J&M for their foundation needs.

Using Ape equipment consisting of one Ape 200 vibro, one Ape 200T vibro, one Ape 200-6 vibro, one Ape 300 vibro, one Ape/J&M 66/80 vibro and one Ape/J&M model 115 hydraulic hammer, Kiewitt Southern installed a pump station designed to move water out of New Orleans in the event of flooding. The Orleans Avenue Canal project was completed before the June 1st deadline and consisted of four sixty foot cells, five gates and 10 pumps capable of moving 115,000 gallons of water per minute. Kiewitt Southern equipment manager Jeff Sarles said ” The Ape equipment worked flawlessly which played a big part in completing the job on time and that the service support was excellent”.