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In January 2013, Imco General approached me with their dilemma- On this Everett, WA Highway job, they have limited space to properly sling up and drive their PZ sheet piles. So they need to be able to pick, load, and drive the sheets in one fell swoop with one piece of equipment, an operator, and a couple of ground guys. The obvious choice? The APE RoboVibe vibratory driver and extractor. With this unique excavator-mounted vibro, they would be able to pick up the sheets from the ground with the patented side-grip clamps and drive them from either the side or the top of their sheets.  After some short talk of the advantages of the RoboVibe over the HMC SP-60 Sonic SideGrip Hammer, Imco General Construction finalized the purchase and received their brand new APE RoboVibe in early April.  This is the first and only RoboVibe purchased in the Pacific Northwest. I had the personal pleasure of visiting Imco General at their Ferndale, WA office/yard and had the opportunity to observe the RoboVibe in action as they drove some PZC-26 sheet piles in their yard with their John Deere 330 excavator. This was an interesting as well as a very educational experience as I have never had the opportunity to see a RoboVibe in action before.

Imco General was satisfied as well as impressed with the final product; and they will be utilizing it on the Everett Highway job this upcoming May. They will also be renting an APE Model 50 Vibro Hammer to remove the sheets. Imco will be hanging the 50 vibro from an excavator and follow behind the RoboVibe for extraction. I hope to make it out to the jobsite in the upcoming month and will be providing an update on this job with photos.

Nearly 400 contractors, engineers, and university research departments gathered in Shanghai this week for the “3rd China International Piling and Deep Foundations Summit 2013.” The summit showcased many new foundation techniques in the foundation industry in China. David White, Managing Director of APE China (Shanghai ZhenLi), was invited to present APE’s multi-linked vibratory hammer technology most recently used on the HongKong-Macau-Bridge project to drive 72 foot diameter piles as well as innovations for the wind pile industry foundations. David White was the first foreigner since the Piling summit started in 2001 to give a 30 minute technical speech in only Mandarin Chinese without the aid of a translator. Many design engineers are beginning to think big about what can be done with vibratory hammer technology and the brand of APE is quickly sinking into the hearts and minds of Chinese engineers who want to design huge projects. Other than branding APE as a world leader in vibratory hammer technology, many in attendance were small and private contractors interested in driving steel pipe and sheet piling using smaller vibratory hammers. Since APE CHINA (ZhenLi) manufactures model 200’s and 200-6’s in China we have the ability to supply both big government contractors and small private contractors with equal service and competitive price. Overall the summit went very well and we hope to be in attendance the for the next Piling summit. For more information on the show visit www.pilingchina.com. Thank you to all that visited us from around the world, we look forward to working with you soon!

It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of our Vice President, great friend, and colleague for the past 20 years, Dave Yingling. Dave had been battling cancer for the past many weeks. Our sincerest condolences go out to Lindsey Joy and the rest of Dave’s family.

Obituary
David Alan Yingling, 45 years young, resident of Auburn, Washington passed away on the 10th day of January 2013 at his residence due to complications from cancer. David was born in Vancouver, Washington, on the 24th of June 1967, the son of Donald Raymond Yingling and Cheryl Lou Terner. David attended South Albany High School graduated in 1985.
David and his soul mate Lindsey Jo Joy recently celebrated the birth of his only son on March 27, 2012. He spent his working career in Kent, WA working for American Pile Driving Equipment Inc. serving as the company’s vice president. David was proceeded in death by his mother, Cheryl Lou Weekes and is survived by his soul mate  Lindsey Jo Joy; his father, Donald Raymond Yingling; his sisters, Teresa Buonocore and Christina Baze; his three children, Megan Ashley Yingling (23) Kelsey Noel Wolfinger (21) and David Alan Yingling Jr (9 months); his grandson, Renton Jamie Hazard (5) and all who loved him. A memorial service will be held Tuesday January 15th at 12:00PM at LifeWay Church, 5015 SW Dash Point Road, Federal Way. Arrangements by Yahn and Son Funeral Home, Auburn. A memorial fund has been set up for David Jr. Please send contributions to American Piledriving Equipment Inc.
P.O. Box 88730 Seattle, WA. Please make checks payable to David A. Yingling Jr.

Service:
Funeral Service: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 at 12 noon at Life Way Christian Church, 5015 S.W. Dash Point Road, Federal Way

To visit Dave’s obituary go to www.yahnandson.com, once there family can sign the guest book and upload any photos you have of Dave. Friends and coworkers feel free to leave comments and memories here on the APE website below the article.

APE has developed Helical Pile systems that will change the nature of helical pile as they are seen by the deep foundations industry. Helical piles have been for most of their history produced by manufacturers who have focused on small diameter screw anchors. These anchors began as tie downs for cables supporting power poles and evolved into small diameter screw anchors used on low capacity foundations. The bolt together sections, homemade driving equipment and the lack of main stream engineering made them suspect and generally unaccepted by the deep foundation industry.

As the industry evolved a core group of manufacturers began to generate larger anchors and more sophisticated drilling equipment. Unfortunately the bolt together sections and lack of involvement by the greater community of deep foundation contractors has left helical piers or anchors, filling an insignificant niche in the industry. Coupled with engineering that is unsupported by the most of the geophysical engineering community. A push for over ten years to correlate drive torque to load capacity of the anchors has been refuted by the general community of engineers and unsupported by many of the people involved in the larger diameter higher energy helical pile industry.

APE has embarked on a program that encompasses material manufacture and supply, equipment development and engineering that relies on the standard principles for deep foundations developed by engineers for over 900 years since the Romans were driving piles in Europe. Additionally APE has added patented drive and coupling technology developed by contractors in the Northwest. This technology has been proven over hundreds of thousands of feet of helical pile, that have been load tested, statically and dynamically hundreds of times. APE has purchased this technology and APE engineers added their years of experience to develop the first mainstream equipment to be specifically designed to install helical piles.

Socket Drive Technology

If you have ever used a socket to turn a bolt you can understand why the APE socket drive technology is simple, reliable and the best way to transmit torque into a pile to drive it. APE has patents on external Socket and internal Allen wrench type drives. Any drilling equipment can be easily modified to use the socket drive technology.

Threaded and Coupled Pile Sections

APE has developed material that uses high strength oil field casings that are threaded and coupled with an APE patented coupler. This connection continues the pile shaft sectional strength through the connection in tension, compression and bending. The connection can be made in less than a minute and makes low headroom work simple. This connection also allows for any depth of pile. Very deep drives are not a restriction for this system. Without the socket drive technology you cannot make up threaded connections, the other systems using large pins to drive the pile keep the material connected to the drill and do not allow the operator to put the pin (male thread) into the female coupler without a high percentage of cross threaded connections.

The APE material is produced under the most stringent standards in the world. APE’s supplier is API ISO certified and API certified for threading and welding on the high strength DOM casings used by APE. These casings have yields of 80,000 psi to 110,000 psi and a wall thickness of min .400 on all size ranges. You cannot produce this material without these certifications. APE’s global reach and buying power allows us to bring this material to market at prices competitive to products of far less quality.

High Pressure Grouting

APE is introducing true high pressure grouting at the tip of the pile. This can be accomplished with a push out tip that is currently approved by Caltrans as a micro-pile or using ports located at the pile tip to grout while installing. Grouting pile with helical flights gives dramatic improvements in load capacity even in poor soils.

Excavator Mounted Helical Pile Drivers

APE is pioneering excavator mounted drills that handle the pile from the ground and easily connect threaded sections. These high power systems (up to 400,000 ft lbs of torque) are powerful fast systems that show up to the job ready to work after unloading from the trailer. No more power unit, this is self-contained and these drills can be attached to rental equipment in a couple hours with no intrusion into the electrical or hydraulic systems of the excavator. APE has drills for excavators from 28,000 lb class to the biggest machine you can find.

Large OD Helical Pile

APE has developed large diameter shafts up to 42″ in diameter with 1″ wall 80,000 yield DSAW pipe. These large helical are helping designers overcome the endangered species issues that are crippling steel pile driving in marine environments.

Ground Loop Technology

This technology works with standard ground source heat pumps (GSHP) and allows the Helical Pile Foundation to be the ground loop. By heating and cooling the building with the most efficient green energy technology on the market, the foundation qualifies for a 10% on commercial, and 30% on residential tax credit. The foundation will also pay for itself in energy savings in just a few years.

Remote access with the excavator mounted equipment, high capacities with pressure grouting, unparalleled low overhead access and deep drives with the threaded connections, the first material and equipment made for helical pile, socket drive technology, large OD pile that do not endanger marine life. Engineering that fits into the mainstream of the geophysical engineering world, and foundations that heat and cool the building with technology that the DOE dubbed “The no#1 green technology for the 21st century” APE has changed the face of helical piles and deep foundations.

APE’s 200-6 successfully drove six piles at a time for the 32 meter diameter (104 ft) cofferdams that are being used to extend the Hong Kong airport runway.  Prior to the project start, the Chinese government design groups had a tough choice between using either 32m (104 ft) diameter super-large piles, similar to the 22m diameter (72 ft) piles driven for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao man-made island project, or instead to use sheet piles.  Since the project is next to the Hong Kong airport there are many safety regulations for construction ships in the area.  To drive 32m (104 ft) super-large diameter piles would require a 4,000 ton boat crane with mast that would exceed the 35m (114 ft) height restriction of the area.  The fear was that if the boat crane was too tall it would be a danger to the airplanes trying to land at the airport nearby.  Therefore, despite the success of the “APE Octakong Project” that drove 22m (72 ft) super-large diameter piles just 10 months ago, they decided to use sheet piles to create the 32m cofferdams instead.

Driving sheet piles for 32m (104 ft) diameter cofferdams on water is no easy task, but despite all of the challenges the main concern was construction speed.  To speed up the project the contractor wanted to drive six sheet piles at a time per hammer, something that again has never been done before on this scale.  APE provided four 200-6 hammers with six APE model 150 clamps attached to custom beam.  Each hammer has a special manifold that allows independent control of each clamp.  After the sheets are put in place the APE 200-6 hammer is placed on a row of six sheets to be driven, however when sheets are first placed in the cofferdam template they are not all sitting at the same height since some sink in the soil farther than others.  The contractor needed a way to grab onto several piles and vibrate down while some of the clamps are still open.

APE changed the design of the clamp slightly to withstand the forces of a vibratory hammer even while some the clamps are in the open position while others are in the closed.  This week the 200-6 was used for the first time with great success.  Currently there are now four working 200-6 hammers on the job site each driving six sheets at a time.  To increase the speed of the placing of the sheets the contractor also designed a special boat that could grab 49 sheets at a time and place them in the cofferdam template; effectively placing 25% of the sheets at once.  A special barge was created to pre-place sheet piles in a position that the special crane could grab. The project requires 147 cofferdams to be driven with 196 flat sheet piles per dam.  Each sheet is 30m long to be driven 20m deep.  One cofferdam can be fully driven to grade in 4-5 days, a speed unattainable without modified equipment and unique construction techniques used.

This project demonstrates the cooperation APE has had with the Chinese government to continue to supply pile driving equipment that meets their ever increasing construction speed requirements.

The APE OctaKong is still making news in the Deep Foundation Construction industry. The Pile Driving Contractors Association (PDCA) has recently put out the 2012 Q3 edition of their Piledriver Magazine. Take a minute to check out this issue of Piledriver for the accomplishments and details on the project. Once again this project has redefined what the limits are in the pile driving industry, and we can’t thank our business partners, vendors and customers enough for making it all happen!

See the Table of Contents for the issue here: http://www.piledrivers.org/files/9c26f31b-1ad6-4c6c-97d0-11d8b6d85ef7–532d9ca3-4c91-4ff8-ac59-7fbf1f5817a9/table-of-contents-website.pdf

You can see the entire digital copy here: http://www.piledrivers.org/files/9c26f31b-1ad6-4c6c-97d0-11d8b6d85ef7–793e108c-2acf-4857-8874-e4a7dce476d2/q3-content-for-website.pdf

The “APE OctaKong” project revolutionized the way cofferdams could be driven at sea when it drove 120 piles at 72 foot in diameter to grade in 6 months.  The “Tandem 200-6 Special” project revolutionized the way cell walls could be driven when it drove 240 single cell sheet walls at 37 foot wide. Now another revolution is taking place; Underwater soil compaction.

In between the two man-made islands for the Hong Kong Macao Bridge will be a 5,000m long tunnel.  To build the tunnel they will use pre-made concrete sections that will be lowered onto the sea floor.  Once all the tunnel sections have been lowered into place the water will be pumped out and a tunnel will be created.  However, before the tunnel sections can be lowered down on the sea floor the ground must be hardened and flat.  Traditional methods would required a large weight to be repeatedly dropped onto the gravel below until the ground is hardened to the required level, but when compacting soil at sea the accuracy of dropping a weight can be slow and tricky.  Therefore, a method was created to use a 40 ton steel plate, that looks like a big clothing iron, connected to a single APE model 600 vibratory hammer.  After the gravel is poured on the ocean floor the APE 600, using 550 tons of driving force, compacts the gravel to near perfect flatness.  Much like ironing a wrinkled shirt, the sea floor is ironed out.

The only difference being that its down 50m underwater in complete darkness.  With special sensors and GPS devices the APE 600’s location is known by operators of the ship above, even during continually changing currents.  APE’s hammer are known to have underwater capabilities far superior to other vibratory hammer models in the market, but this job requires the hammer stay underwater for 4-5 days at a time at 50m deep working 24 hours a day.  This would be the most rigorous underwater job ever done using APE equipment and the engineering limits of the APE 600 again would be tested, especially because the project will be 18 months long.  After 1 month of operation the project has been a complete success.  Today the 600 was pulled out of the water after it’s fourth 5 day dive and all indications show zero seawater entered the gearbox and all systems normal.  We hope to see more contractors using this method in the future for underwater soil compaction jobs in the future.  For more information of this project or information on underwater pile driving please feel free contact David White of APE China.

Dewitt Construction had few big holes to drill in Hillsboro OR.  Holes were 30” diameter and 85’ deep.  The 100K drill was just coming out of production and this was a perfect place to put this newly designed drill.  This project in Hillsboro was in one of the INTEL facilities, and was very difficult for myself and Scotto Gray, one of the designers for this Drill, to get on site for an equipment evaluation.  Speaking from experience, it is not every day you walk onto a job site with a “prototype” piece of foundation equipment and the super intendant says, with a look a complete satisfaction in his eye, “don’t change a thing, this has got to be the best drill I have ever used”.

So we watched the drill work for a couple of hours, everything going just like clockwork.  And as the drill approached the 40’ mark Jeff, the Super on site described the material from 45’ to 85’ as a very stiff clay, resembling “bay mud” as Jeff described it.  This material was so sticky and heavy that it would not carry itself up the flight, they would take 10’ bites and bring the flight out of the hole and have to remove it with a mini-excavator.  The drill has been running in APE 37 inch U leads which the customer liked so well they are buying this set of leads. There were 60 holes drilled and the 5 inch grouting system was used to pump grout at pressures averaging 1000-1500 psi.

Piling Industry Canada published the story below on the Henkels and McCoy job on the Wisconsin River. The projects APE has gone airborne with Erickson Air-Crane in the past have always been challenging for the crews since jobs like this are so infrequent.  American Transmission Co and Henkels & McCoy did a great job with the challenges the project had to offer. We are happy that our J&M 28-35 and Helitemplate were able to help these guys get the job done.

Click Here for PDF Version

Penny Sisson, Office Manager and Wally Brumsey, Southeast Sales Representative worked with Mark Guin with Scott Bridge regarding the CSXT Mobile River Bridge project in Alabama. The APE Service team, especially Felton Wells,  spent a good amount of time installing and starting up the equipment with the customer. Here we have some pictures and good words from Mark Guin in regards to the APE equipment Scott Bridge used on the job:

Here is the Kong getting ready. The second picture is the entire bridge that was built and stored on the pilings we were trying to get out. Look at the size of the crane next to the new bridge and it puts it in perspective. The third picture is an aerial of the same. The fourth pic is the original turning type bridge between the towers that are going to raise up and down vertically the new bridge. The fifth is the old bridge turned to allow river traffic. The last picture is the new bridge put in place. The two locations are 6 miles apart.  At any rate thanks for all your help. It is great to work with folks like yourself and Wally.

A big thanks to the APE team down in Florida and Mark Guin for providing the pictures and commentary, we hope to do more business with Scott Bridge in the future. Wally Brumsey sends a special thanks to Mike Cribbs and Felton Wells for a job well done.