News
News
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
ECI Makes 2 Calendars with Ryegate Culvert Project
ECI’s East Rygate Culvert project is highlighted on both the Acrow Bridge and the EIV Technical Services 2016 calendars. The project involves the design-build construction of a 32-ft-wide (clear span) cast-in-place concrete arch culvert within a 70-ft-deep excavation under the Washington County Railroad (WACR) and 60-ft-deep excavation under US Route 5 in East Ryegate, Vermont. The excavation is supported with steel sheetpiles braced with hollow bar soil nails and tiebacks. The excavation extends to about 13 feet below the adjacent Connecticut River.
Acrow Bridge is the supplier of both bridges used to span over the sheetpile braced excavation. The rail bridge is a 70-ft span and the highway bridge is an 80-ft span. The highway bridge is on a 7% grade. Both bridges were installed by crane-assist launch and are supported on temporary pile foundations.
EIV Technical Services is our environmental compliance consultant. EIV is spin-off from Engineers Construction approximately 30 years ago and has since become a woman-owned consulting firm specializing in environmental and construction services.