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Your First Stop for Piledriving Technology News

The remediation of an old gas station site in Gloversville, NY required the driving of sheets into the glacial till 30 feet down. This was accomplished previously using an APE D46-32 Diesel Hammer.

So when it was time to pull the sheets, the contractor tried and was unable to pull them using his J&M Model 25 Vibro. APE recommended the Model 200 Vibro.

Using their 110 ton Link Belt crane, the contractor was able to pull all of the sheets even though they could only partly pull into the 2nd stage of the patented APE 2-stage suppressor.

When the sheets were all pulled it was very apparent as to why the sheets were so difficult to pull.

Traditionally, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has been very rigid with their pile driving criteria, with 20 blows to the inch standard regardless of the pile type or size.

With half of the bridges on the US Route 219 reconstruction in Bradford, PA designed on Monotubes, which cannot take the stresses of high blowcounts, the contractor enlisted the help of GRL. Together they approached PennDOT with a driving system using WEAP Analysis to show they could achieve the required bearing at less than 20 blows per inch, which would prevent overstressing the Monotubes.

The contractor submitted several J&M hydraulic hammers for approval and PennDOT accepted both the J&M Model 82 that they own, with a 8,200 lb ram rated at 32,800 ft/lbs as well as the J&M Model 70B, with a 7,000lbs ram rated at 21,000 ft/lbs.

APE/J&M supplied 2 rental 70B’s in addition to the contractor owned Model 82. Because the hydraulic hammers have an infinitely adjustable stroke inbetween the minumum and maximum, dynamic testing was used on all hammers to determine the optimal hammer stroke. This testing confirmed that the bearing was achievable at something other than 20 blows per inch, in this case 10 blows per inch, which enabled the contractor to drive the Monotubes without fear of destroying them because at 10 blows per inch, the compressive stresses were comfortably below the yield of the Monotube’s steel.

This is the 1st time a hydraulic hammer has been used on a PennDOT project. We look forward to many more.

APE has supplied the D19-42’s that are driving the 110 ft long 12″ H-Piles for the foundation of a new bridge over the Susquehanna River in Northeast PA. PennDOT spec’s are 20 blows to the inch, which is extreme duty for any impct hammer and the APE D19-42’s showed that they can tackle the toughest jobs around.

The APE 170VM vibratory hammer was called to duty recently to extract sheets in a new sewage treatment plant in Liverpool NY.

The circular cofferdam was previously driven and a concrete tank formed and built inside of the excavation.

The desire to limit the vibrations generated when pulling the sheets came not from the new structure but from the old structures nearby that are still in service until the new plant comes on line.

Since a variable moment hammer starts and stops spinning while the eccentrics are phased out of time, no low end vibrations occur. The vibrations that are generated when the hammer starts and stops at lower frequency are the ones that generate the highest peak particle velocity (ppv).

The 170VM pulled all sheets while keeping the ppv below that maximum allowable.

APE/J&M has recently delivered 5 J&M Model 115 HIH’s to a Cleveland jobsite that is an old garbage landfill that has been capped and a new shopping mall is being constructed on it. Closed end pipe piles are being driven thru the trash to support the buildings.

One interesting feature of the piles on this job is that although 10.75″ pipe piles are being driven, a 16″ shoe is welded on the end of the pile, eliminating all wall friction and making the pile a true end bearing pile. This was designed in such a way because of a fear that splicing piles could ignite the methane gas that is released as the pile is being driven thru the decaying garbage in the ground. The oversize shoe creates a large void between the wall of the pile and the soil and allows the methane to escape.

The APE/J&M Northeast office was contacted recently about an alleged APE sighting in the heart of Maine. APE immediately responded with the New England APE rep visiting that quaint Maine village where the APE was last seen. Sure enough the APE was hard at work driving sheetpiles at the new Rt 23 bridge.

The APE Model 100 Vibro has established a loyal following in Maine, where a 2,200 inch/lb hammer with a 7,900 suspended weight allows contractors to use their same cranes and reach the same distances that they are used to. Yet the Model 100 Vibro greatly outperforms the little MKT’s and H&M’s that contractors have been using.

Bi-County Equipment, Ronkonkoma, N.Y. had to drive sheets to form a cofferdam in East New York, N.Y.. Site of the excavation is adjacent to a railroad track, under a street bridge which is under an elevated roadway. R.Alessi Equipment mounted an APE Model 7.5 Low Headroom Hydraulic Impact Hammer on a Caterpillar excavator to solve the problem.

R. Alessi Equipment based right here in Mount Vernon, New York, will be the national distributor of the ROBOVIB, APE’s new robotic vibro. The ROBOVIB is mounted on an excavator and can articulate to pick and drive H piles and sheets. Alessi has always been APE’s excavator mounting specialist. APE technology and innovation linked with Alessi’s experience-a winning combination.

HF Darling of Williamsville, NY just got some good news… No they didn’t save a bunch of money by switching to Geico… What they did do was increase production on the new Geico office building in Buffalo, NY by switching to a new J&M Model 82 Hydraulic Impact Hammer. The J&M Model 82 uses the same chassis as the J&M 115 HIH, except the ram weight is reduced to 8,200 lbs. This gives the 82 HIH 32,800 ft/lbs of energy.

Darling was driving 10×42 H-Piles for this project. Since full energy was not needed, Darling was able to utilize the fully adjustable stroke control on the J&M 82 HIH and dial in the needed energy to match the parameters of this specific job.

This versatility allows all J&M hammers to be utilized on jobs with different pile types and capacities.

C.D. Perry of Troy, NY is rebuilding a bulkhead on the Hudson River in Albany, NY. Using their own HMC Model 25 vibratory hammer (J&M Model 22-23), Perry rented a 3 ft caisson beam and 2 J&M Model 80 Caisson Clamps to drive 140 ft long, 24 in OD, 1 in wall steel pipe weighing over 34,000lbs for the bulkhead as well as 140 ft long, 16 in OD, 1/2 in wall pipe for a loading platform. The Model 25 was able to seat the pipes into the dense layer above the rock, and the pipes were then seated into the rock with an APE D36-32 diesel hammer.