Micropile Underpinning of US 69 Bridge over Kansas River

May 14, 2009 rockman 2

A temporary micropile underpinning foundation system was used to support the abutments of the US 69 bridge over the Kansas River near Kansas City, KS while repairs to the abutment bearing devices were performed. This post is based on my notes from the presentation titled “Emergency Micropile Underpining of the U.S. 69 Truss – Kansas River Bridge” by Jim Brennan, Assistant [State?] Geotechnical Engineer with KDOT. It was the first presentation of the 34th Southwest Geotechnical Engineers Conference in Phoenix this week. Read on for more.

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Southwest Geotechnical Conference Wrapup

May 13, 2009 rockman Comments Off

[Editor] Updated Thursday May 28, 2009 2:15pm [/Editor]

I was able to attend the first full day of the 34th Southwest Geotechnical Conference in Phoenix, AZ yesterday. The conference, sponsored by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) and the FHWA, is going on through tomorrow, and I wish I could have attended the rest of the sessions, but I had to get back to work! There were some very interesting presentations, and I made some valuable contacts that will hopefully result in some additional articles and other content for GeoPrac. Below are some of the highlights for me, some of which I plan to elaborate on in separate posts. When I do, I’ll update this post with the links. The highlights were…

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Voids Open as a Result of Tunneling Under Seattle’s Beacon Hill

May 7, 2009 rockman Comments Off

The Seattle Times (hat tip to ASCE SmartBrief) has reported that seven voids have been discovered above the Beacon Hill Tunnel with one opening up at the ground surface. The tunnel is being constructed by Sound Transit, the area’s transportation agency as part of a roughly $2.6 billion (yep, billion) light-rail project connecting downtown Seattle with the University of Washington and SEA-TAC airport. The voids were a result of running sand pockets in the otherwise stable clay units that were encountered by the tunnel boring machine or TBM. These voids migrated up like a chimney with one reaching the surface, almost 160-ft above the tunnel. This void was apparently 21-ft deep and opened up in a resident’s front yard and could have easily swallowed her up as she noticed it while gardening. The other voids were discovered at a depth of 20- to 65-ft below the ground surface. More after the break. (Illustration from Seattle Times)

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Florida Agency Using Cement-Polyurethane Foam Mix to Plug Sinkholes

May 6, 2009 rockman Comments Off

Hillsborough County Florida is using a mix of expanding polyurethane foam and conventional cement grout as a more cost effective means of filling sinkholes. Officials say the mix uses 30 to 40% less grout adding […]

Landslide Mitigation Examples in Japan

May 6, 2009 rockman Comments Off

A couple of weeks ago the Landslides Under a Microscope blog had two nice posts about Landslide Mitigation examples in Japan. The author references the book “Landslides in Japan” (1996), but I’m not sure if […]

gINT Software Announces Enterprise Version for Centralized Subsurface Data Management

May 5, 2009 rockman Comments Off

New SQL Server Version Offers Benefits for Companies with High-Volume Data

gINT enterprise diagram Santa Rosa, CA – May 5, 2008 – gINT Software, Inc.

gINT Software announces the release of “gINT Enterprise,” a new SQL Server version of gINT. gINT Enterprise offers unlimited centralized data storage as well as multi-project reporting and extended querying power. With the new SQL Server integration, gINT Enterprise offers a far superior range of subsurface data management capabilities above and beyond what can be done in a standard Microsoft Access™ database.

[Editor] Disclosure: gINT Software, Inc. is a sponsor of GeoPrac. All images courtesy of gINT. Read on for the rest of the press release. [/Editor] […]

kcICON Drilled Shafts Completed

May 5, 2009 rockman Comments Off

The drilled shaft foundations for the kcICON bridge over the Missouri River have been completed according to Dan Brown and Associates, LLC, the geotechnical engineers on the job. The 1700-ft long bridge conveys the I-29/35 […]

Scene of fatal test pit collapse in Brimscombe, UK in September of 2008

UK Firm Charged With Manslaughter in Death of Geologist

May 4, 2009 rockman Comments Off

A geotechnical company in the UK has been charged with manslaughter after the death of a geologist on September 5, 2008 according to the UK publication, the New Civil Engineer. This is believed to be […]

Twitter and Widgets

April 30, 2009 rockman 3

Twitter I hope that GeoPrac is always near the front of the pack in the geo-industry when it comes to Web 2.0 and social media. With that in mind, I’m excited to announce that GeoPrac is finally on twitter! (http://twitter.com/geoprac/) You can use it as an alternative to the RSS feeds as each item posted to the site will show up in the twitter feed (with a little lag perhaps). But I also hope to start using it to interact with visitors and members and as a micro-blog where I post links to news items and stories that either didn’t lend themselves well to a GeoNews post or I flat out didn’t have time to write up. I admit I’m still discovering twitter, but feel free to drop me a tweet!

Blidget Promo Badgegreat free widgetsWidgetbox

I also wanted to create a Widget for the items posted here, so I decided to use Widgetbox.com. I think it looks pretty slick with the teaser images I usually post showing up along with the post’s title. If you run a blog or website, by all means feel free to add it! Click through to see it in action.

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Niagara Tunnel – Crappy rock, Horizontal stress, SLOOOOOW progress

April 28, 2009 rockman Comments Off

[Updated November 17, 2009] A few new posts from Ontario-geofish [/Updated]

Those with interest in rock mechanics and tunneling might be interested in this project. The Ontario Power Generation (OPG) company is the owner of a $600M (Canadian) construction project to create a third hydro power tunnel under Niagara Falls. Apparently the project is having all kinds of problems with overbreak in some very difficult tunneling conditions which means very slow progress and big $$ overruns. (Photo from niagarafrontier.com)

I’ve been meaning to post something on this project for some time. I admit that my perspective is biased by the viewpoint you can find on the Ontario-geofish blog. I’ve mentioned Harold Asmis before, he’s the owner of the OG blog, and a former OPG employee if I understand correctly. He left OPG for a career doing geophysics and earthquake engineering for the Nuclear Power industry in Canada. I highly recommend his blog, he has great insight into tunneling, earthquakes, siting of nuclear power plants not to mention opinions on all kinds of other things. His writing style is very colorful and entertaining as well.

So, Harold has written a whole series of blog posts on the Niagra Tunnel project, including a 5-part series entitled "The Disaster of the Niagara Tunnel" and a 4-part series called "Niagara Tunnel: doing it Right". He is not directly involved with the project, but his long career with OPG and related disciplines gives him some great insights. I’ve collected a list of some of his blog posts on the Niagara Tunnel project as well as a few other links about the project. Click through for the good stuff.

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