News
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ECI Receives AGC-VT Best Builder Award
ECI is the recipient of the 2017 AGC-VT Best Builder Award in the category of Intermodal Transportation & Rail for the Pittsford Bridge Rehabilitation & Strengthening Project.
Bridge #219 is a two-span Vermont Railway Systems (VRS) railroad bridge over the Otter Creek in Florence (Town of Pittsford), VT. The bridge was constructed in 1900 and originally consisted of a 133-ft-long truss span and a 73-ft-long girder span with stone abutments and middle pier within the river. The center pier, which is on a 22-degree skew, had experienced settlement and deterioration throughout the years and required periodic heavy maintenance and shimming of the bridge and tracks to maintain adequate track alignment. This projected involved replacing the center pier with a new concrete pier cap supported by drilled shafts on each side of the existing stone pier. Only two weekend-long railroad shutdowns were allowed and therefore a majority of the work was to be completed under normal rail traffic. This bridge is along the VTR’s busiest section of track. Engineers Construction, Inc. (ECI) completed the challenge by segmenting the new pier cap into 3-sections, with a 200,000-pound center precast section that was installed (temporarily) on top of the partially-demolished stone pier during one of the weekend-long shutdowns. This required unloading of the center pier with temporary shoring of the truss span and complete removal of the 73-ft long girder span by crane lift. The precast section of the new pier cap, which included new bearings and bearing pedestals, was designed to be temporarily supported on the remaining section of the existing center stone pier. The new precast section was later integrated with the adjacent 6-foot diameter drilled shafts with cast-in-place infills placed after the shutdown.
ECI Recognized by Vermont Public Places Award
ECI, among other distinguished contractors, consultants, and the City of Burlington, was recognized with the Vermont Public Places Merit Award for the Burlington Bike Path Rehabilitation Project. ECI was the contractor for Phase 1a, the section from the Vermont Railway Yard to the Urban Reserve.
The bike path was originally constructed nearly 30 years ago and was one of the first in New England. However, recreational path standards have evolved significantly since then. This improvement project is meant to bring the bike path up to current standards and to re-route it around the special event areas on the Waterfront Great Lawn.
The Burlington Waterfront is a huge asset to Burlington and all Vermonters should visit this special place to experience the views of Lake Champlain.
ECI Installs Temporary Bridge for Failed Culvert on Key South Burlington – Williston Artery
ECI was contracted with the City of South Burlington to install a temporary bridge over the failed culvert conveying the Muddy Brook under Kimball Avenue (Marshall Avenue on the Williston side). The Muddy Brook is at the town line between Williston and South Burlington. The municipalities jointly own the 16-ft multiplate culvert embedded in the 30-ft-high road embankment. The culvert failed on April 7th during a high water event. ECI responded that day to stabilize the site and barricade off the road.
ECI was subsequently contracted on April 11th to install the temporary bridge to allow the road to reopen to the traveling public. The road closure had a significant impact on local traffic which was worsened from the impact of other local roadway projects.
The replacement bridge consists of a 150-ft pre-engineered modular steel truss bridge manufactured by Mabey Universal Bridge. The bridge is owned by VTrans. ECI’s scope of work involved design and construction of the bridge substructure, assembly and installation of the modular truss superstructure, paving of the deck and approaches, and final restoration to allow for traffic.
The bridge substructure consisted of a shallow footing abutment with a concrete waste block backwalls. The bridge was assembled at the east abutment and rolled towards the west as the modular sections were installed.
The bridge was re-opened to the public on April 26th and will remain in service while the municipalities design and construct a new culvert.
ECI Releases New “Safety Program Manual”
ECI recently released a new version of its Corporate Safety Manual. Unlike past versions focused on safety compliance, this new version is appropriately named the “ECI Safety Program Manual” to reflect ECI’s view of creating a safe workplace through a holistic approach that focuses on leadership and corporate culture.
As summarized by Kenneth Pidgeon, PE, president of ECI:
“ECI strives to maintain a corporate culture of safe work practices to protect our workers, the public, and the environment.”
The highlights of the Safety Program Manual include:
- Leadership
- Technical training
- Professional behavior
- Project planning
- Risk Assessment
- Standardized safety practices
- Strong communication, documentation, and attention to details.
Please check out our document: ECI – Safety Program Manual V2.0
ECI Presents at ACEC-VTrans Transportation Technical Workshop
ECI Featured in Akkerman’s 2017 Calendar
Akkerman, Inc., a pipe jacking and tunneling equipment manufacturer out of Brownsdale, MN has featured ECI in its 2017 calendar. ECI’s Lebanon Route 120 sewer crossing of I-89 was featured for June with a photo of ECI’s crew lifting the muck cart out of the excavation. The project involved a 48-inch-dia steel casing installed by Akkerman’s TBM.
ECI Wins Excellence in Concrete Award from NNECPA
ECI’s Ryegate Culvert Project was recognized by the Northern New England Concrete Promotion Association for “Cast-in-Place Concrete Structures” at the NNECPA Annual Meeting. We were nominated by Carroll Concrete, an NNECPA member and ready-mix supplier of the concrete for the project.
The culvert project involved over 2,400 cy of concrete, designed for a 100 year service life. The unique complexity was the 32-ft arch span formed and poured using a Doka form system. The 2.5-ft-thick wingwalls reached a height of 27.5 feet above their footings and were accomplished in a single pour each. Reinforcing steel was both uncoated and dual coating, depending upon its location. The headwall and wingwalls were formed using a liner to provide a more aesthetic appearance.
ECI Co-Authors Technical Paper at the 2016 Deep Foundation Institute Annual Meeting in NYC
ECI’s Ken Pidgeon co-authored a technical paper with the Marco and Adriane Boscardin. The paper, entitled “Design, Installation, and Testing of Hollow Bar Tiebacks used as Excavation Support” was presented by the lead author, Marco Boscardin, PE, PhD. The paper describes the use of over 700 hollow bar anchors for the 70-ft-deep excavation at the Ryegate Culvert.
For more information on the Ryegate Culvert, click the following link: https://www.engineersconstruction.com/projects/ryegate-culvert-design-build-replacement-project/
DFI 2016 in New York City was attended by over 1,000 engineers, contractors, industry suppliers, and owners involved in the deep foundation industry. Ken has attended several DFI annual conferences throughout the years, including 1994 and 1995 where he authored and presented technical papers.
ECI Nears Completion of $15.248M Design-Build Ryegate Culvert
The waters of the Manchester Brook have been flowing through the new 32-ft-wide Ryegate Culvert since May. And just recently, the temporary bridges for US Route 5 and the Washington County Railroad were removed and traffic was back to the final highway and railroad alignments. The new 32-ft-wide concrete arch, with lengths of 144 and 128 feet and a 50-ft-long open area between them, replaces an old undersized collapsing culvert. The work was completed over a period of nearly 2 years and without closing US Route 5 and with only limited rail shutdowns during non-traffic periods.
ECI self-performed nearly every aspect of this complex heavy civil project including earthwork, foundation and sheet piling, tiebacks and soil nails, temporary bridges, concrete, rail work, paving, horizontal directional drilling, quality control program, and project management.
This project also includes many firsts for ECI:
- ECI’s first design-build (D-B) transportation project – Our client was the Vermont Agency of Transportation. ECI was the first Vermont contractor to serve as a lead for a VTrans D-B project. And, Ryegate was just the 6th D-B project for VTrans.
- ECI’s first and second temporary bridge launches, both of which used the crane-assist method – The 80-ft-long highway bridge was unique for its 7% grade and on a skewed alignment to the excavation which posed challenges during installation and relative to maintenance. The 70-ft-long railroad bridge was also unique because of the limited access to the work site from the rail. ECI deployed the pre-assembled railroad bridge using rail car “trucks” which were incorporated into the launch.
- ECI’s deepest excavation – And, likely the deepest braced excavation in soil ever attempted in Vermont with a final depth of 70 feet below the railroad and 65 feet below US Route 5. The excavation was supported by interlocking steel sheet piles and supplemented with soldier piles and wood lagging in certain areas. ECI installed over 700 tiebacks and soil nails for bracing.
- ECI’s most complex concrete project – The culvert project involved over 2,400 cy of concrete, designed for a 100 year service life. The unique complexity was the 32-ft arch span formed and poured using a Doka form system. The 2.5-ft-thick wingwalls reached a height of 27.5 feet above their footings and were accomplished in a single pour each. Reinforcing steel was both uncoated and dual coating, depending upon its location. The headwall and wingwalls were formed using a liner to provide a more aesthetic appearance.
- ECI’s most complex QA/QC Program – As the design-build contractor, ECI also performed its own field quality control on all aspects of the work. The QA was performed by Greenman-Pederson, a consultant to ECI. The QA/QC aspect of design-build transportation projects are highly involved systematic programs developed and executed by the D-B Team to the standards established by VTrans and FHWA .
- ECI’s first use of an automated robotic total station for monitoring geotechncial settlement points – The system automatically took daily optical survey measurements on prisms mounted on different features of the excavation support system, temporary bridges, embankments, and completed concrete work. The system was set up to provide automatic email reports to ECI if movements exceeded anticipated movement levels.
ECI’s design partners (Dubois & King of Randolph, VT and Boscardin Consulting of Amherst, MA) designed the permanent work. Boscardin Consulting and ECI jointly, with input from GEI Consultants (Winchester, MA), designed the temporary excavation support system. Other D-B Team members included EIV Technical Services as the Environmental Compliance Officer and Francine Perkins as the Public Relations Officer.
ECI’s Ken Pidgeon Interviewed for UVM Summit Magazine
Ken Pidgeon (UVM Civil Engineering, 1984) was interviewed for UVM’s Summit Magazine.
Summit Magazine:
http://www.uvm.edu/~cems/summit/SummitSpring2016.pdf
Expanded Article:
http://www.uvm.edu/~cems/?Page=news&storyID=22551&category=cems