Crux installing micropiles for San Diego Gas & Electric
In Memoriam

Crux acquired by Quanta Services

Specialty geotechnical drilling contractor, Crux Subsurface, Inc. of Spokane, Washington was acquired Quanta Services (NYSE: PWR), an S&P 500 company and a leader in infrastructure services for the electric power, pipeline and telecommunications industries according […]

Seattle tunnel cross-section
Project Related

Seattle tunnel will go under 158 buildings

The tunnel replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct (SR-99) will pass beneath 158 existing structures requiring an extensive program of vibration and settlement monitoring as well as some remediation. Of the 158 buildings, WSDOT identified 20 […]

Lateral resistance function for micropile in clay socketed into bedrock
Available Resources

Micropiles for Slope Stabilization

In an August 2010 article in ADSC’s Foundation Drilling Magazine, Eric Loehr and Dan Brown of Dan Brown and Associates summarized the key findings from a report they authored on the use of micropiles in […]

Cannon Place office building in London
Project Related

Innovative Foundation System for London Office Building

Cannon Place office building in London This has to be one of the most complex geotechnical engineering problems I’ve heard of for a building, if not for any kind of project. For starters, beneath the proposed 10-story office building referred to as Cannon Place lies the Cannon Street Train Station built in 1868. Also beneath the site are walls and foundations of a Roman Governor’s palace. In order to accommodate these features, the building has 21-m cantilevers at each end, with the load bearing happening over two groupings of columns at the 1/3 points. In section it looks quite like a 3-span bridge…without the abutments and stacked 10-stories tall! More after the break. (Images by New Civil Engineer) […]

Devil's slide repair of PCH 1 using
Geologic Hazards

Devil’s Slide Repair and Tunnel Bypass Presentation

Devil's slide repair of PCH 1 using [Updated Thursday May 29, 2009 – 1:00 PM PDT] Added a photo of the AIS Kaiser S2 excavator (spider excavator), and added photos of the Devil’s Slide debris dump where they have put the landslide material removed and the material from the tunnel excavation. [/Update]

Grant Wilcox, Geology Branch Chief with CALTRANS Office of Geotechnical Design West gave a presentation on the Devil’s Slide repair along PCH Highway 1 at the Southwest Geotechnical Engineer’s Conference on May 12 in Phoenix. I’ve posted about the project here before. When I saw Mr. Wilcox, I knew he looked familiar but I couldn’t figure out why. At the beginning of his presentation he made light of his being on You-Tube…then it clicked! He gave a nice overview of the history of the failures, the geology, and the tunnel project. What follows are a few quick tidbits from his talk based on my notes. (Photo via Caltrans site).

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