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Savia Peru has taken delivery of their new APE D128 with APE / SEMW Offshore Leader system, this Hammer will be used to Drive Oil Platform legs 300 ft long or more off the Coast of Peru. With the fine Crew from Savia Peru doing excellent work the Hammer and Leader where put together and tested on a Batter pile of similar rake as the Oil Platform legs in 2 days. The Hammer and Leader system weighed in at 68 tons and is rated for up to an 8.5 degree batter. APE and SEMW have many options for Offshore systems and can fit any need.

The Metro Muni Project in San Francisco California is creating a lot of work for the Bay Area Boys. There are a lot of obstacles on this project as they forge ahead with construction. One such obstacle is old timber pile. Yes, thousands of timber piles that have been driven in the past that need to be removed before New foundations can be installed. Vibration is a huge issue here with all the high rise buildings on each side of the project and removing those old timber pile has created a challenge. Not only do the timber pile have to be romoved, but the void of removing these timber pile would create foundation issues for the ajacent buildings. Solution? Drive casing around the existing timber pile, pull the timber pile, back fill the casing and then pull the casing. Easy solution right? With the vast knowledge and experience of APE to help, Yes! One of the problems with extracting timber pile is they need to have about five feet of timber head exposed. Driving a pipe around the timber pile would only case the timber pile to the top, not below the top of the timber pile. Solution? Meet the APE “Metro Muni Optimus Prime”. An APE 200 vibro fitted with an APE caisson beam, two APE beam to clamp adapters, two APE clamp extensions, two short APE five foot beams bolted to the bottom of the extensions and two APE model 100 caisson clamps. This set up enabled the contractor to drive the casing below the top of the timber pile to expose enough of the timber head to clamp onto. Following up Metro Muni Transoid with an APE 64X Excavator mounted vibro fitted with an APE swing arm timber clamp, the timber pile extracted out of the driven casing. Back filling the casing and extracting the casing was the final touch to a difficult solution that didn’t affect the foundations of the neighbor buildings. So the next time you sight something uncommon in the foundation industry, look for the APE!

Hurricane Irene came up the east coast and made a big mess at the shinning star of North Carolina……………The Outer Banks. This long strip of barrier islands is one of the biggest summer playgrounds on the east coast, but lately it’s also become a magnet for “Nor east storms” and hurricanes. One of the hardest hit areas is the region south of Oregon Inlet. It has become common for the water to rise up on highway 12 and wash large areas of it away.

Hurricane Irene was no different. Just about the time the winds & rain had left the area the residents & the NCDOT had seen the damage, a very large area of the only road in & out was gone and mother nature had blessed the Outer banks with a new inlet. “Carolina Bridge” from Orangeburg SC got the call to come and look and see what could be done ASAP to re-open this stretch of road. Richard Nickel, Operations Manager of Carolina Bridge met with the NCDOT and they decided to bridge the gap with a temporary bridge until a permanent fix could be designed and agreed upon.

The NCDOT contracted Carolina Bridge to install some large sheet pile containment cells at both ends of the bridge as well as aprox. 90 ea. 24” x 70’ steel pipe piles to support the temporary bridge. The crews will be working 24/7 2 shifts until the road re-opens Richard contacted Jimmy Deemer of APE Mid-Atlantic in Virginia Beach VA. And they determined an APE model 200 vibratory hammer and an APE D-30-42 diesel hammer would be a good choice to meet the criteria that was needed to support the new bridge.

Carolina Bridge is currently driving the piles to with in 5’-10 feet of grade with the APE 200 vibro hammer, and finishing / proving them with the APE D-30-42 diesel hammer, all is going very smooth. APE wishes Carolina Bridge a safe and productive job, we know they have their work cut out for them! Contact your nearest APE branch for all of your piledriving & foundation equipment needs, APE is the largest manufacture & provider of equipment in the world! Visit us on the web……..www.apevibro.com and see just what APE can do for you & your current or upcoming job. GO APE !

As Arq. Andres Rivera had suspected and experienced in the 1st major expansion Grupo Indi succesfully completed at The Port of Lazaro Cardenas back in 2005; the soil conditions were unpredictably tough.

Due to it’s geographical location (between the river and the Atlantic Ocean), the soils consist of thick layers of fine sands combined with cohesive clays, gravel, and boulders.

Their PTC 60 HD was working at maximum capacity and  still could not drive or extract the 1.6m diameter, 3/4” wall, 18m long temporary sleeves used to contain the soils.

Due to lack of capacity of their 150 ton crane and limited weight restriction on the platforms it stand, getting a bigger vibro was not an option.

They needed a similar size vibro with more driving force and extra pulling force able to withstand the use and abuse of this difficult soils.

Luckily, Arq. Rivera had already heard about THE YELLOW APE that had been taking over the territory of Mexico, annihilating the competition one job at a time.

After carefully considering and experiencing the challenges at the jobsite, our expert piledriving engineers decided to send a modified APE 200-6 with an 1050 HP Power Unit able to put out 2200 rpm @ 5000 psi for an approximate frequency of 1750 cpm, which in turn put out as much as 287 tons of driving force and 167 tons of pulling force. Now the PTC 60HD lies on the floor looking @ at THE YELLOW APE work its ass off…

How does APE make a similar size vibro put out almost double the driving force and double the extraction force?

It takes years and years of innovation, engineering, and patented technology.

Now, Arq. Andrés Rivera is confident he will finish his project on time for Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón to come inaugurate on October 31st what will be the Port handling more TEUS of all Mexico. GO APE! KEEP IT COMING GRUPO INDI!

Costa  Fortuna in Sao Paulo, Brazil has purchased a new 200T Vibro and 700 Power unit with an 8 ft Caisson Beam and (2) 200 Caisson clamps and a 200 Sheet clamp. This Equipment will be used in Belem, Brazil on a Massive Power line Project. Costa Fortuna is a repeat APE customer and we wish them all the best in the future. For Sales in the Caribbean, Central or South America please contact:

Jim Casavant 1-863-660-8716 Cell 24/7 or jimc@apevibro.com

Archer-Western was contracted to update the existing water / sewage treatment plant at the “Norfolk International Marine Terminal” they knew they would need some large vibratory hammers as well as some very specialized ones for this project due to the soil conditions and the vibration requirements for the sheet pile installation. APE Mid-Atlantic had the equipment and game plan to tackle this difficult task. Jimmy Deemer / APE branch Manager contacted the on site Project manager, Andy Curl and they decided to use the APE 200-6 Vibratory hammer for the outer wall of the large coffer cell, and an APE 250VM (Variable Moment) for the vibration sensitive area’s around existing structures. Both hammers performed flawlessly installing the 60′ – 80′ sheet pile. Even the seasoned pilebucks who had never been around a variable moment hammer couldn’t believe that such a big hammer could drive such a long sheet pile in tough soils with no noticeable vibration and structure damage ! Amazing ! If you have a tough upcoming job, or one that is in a vibration sensitive area call your local APE branch. APE has all of the one of a kind equipment that the competition doesn’t even know about. APE has all of the solutions for all of your work…………………………Go APE !

The Walsh/PCL Joint Venture in Connecticut on the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge replacement project came to APE with a dilemma. They needed to install a work trestle using 24″ open ended pipe piles, some of which have to be driven underneath the existing bridge structure.

APE came up with a system that includes an APE Tandem 150 vibro that allows the piles to extend thru a centerhole clamp and above the height of the hammer to maximize headroom. Then the piles are impacted in to capacity with an APE D62-42 diesel hammer in a specially built short section of leads.

Nehemiah Construction of Northern California knows what it takes to drive BIG pile… That’s why they called on Steve Cress of APE, the largest piledriving equipment manufacture in the world! With the massive power of the APE model D180-42 diesel hammer and the special application bottom drive system, Nehemiah Construction is able to drive their 8 foot diameter pipe pile160 feet into California’s toughtest soil conditions on Highway 99 in Nicolaus, CA; halfway between Sacramento and Yuba City.  As the pile drove deeper the driving got tougher; but it was no match for the MIGHTY APE D180!!  As Roger Brown the Construction Manager of Nehemiah said… “We had reservations that the pile would reach tip elevation without major complications but because of APE and Steve Cress and his knowledge of the driving system inovations, our piledriving was made simple”.  This is what makes team work sucessful… people who use Steve’s 25 years of knowledge and practical application with confindence! That’s what gets the job done ….the American APE way!!

Written by BN

AUI is building the largest solar panel farm in Texas using three APE DHJ85 pilerigs. The piles are 6″x9lbs per ft. h- beams that are 20′ long. The job consists of 26,400 h-piles and AUI is averging between 125 and 150 piles per day per rig. This solar farm will generate 30mw of power which is enough to power 12k to 18k homes once it is complete. Matt Even who is the Assistant Civil Project Manager for AUI on this project says “The equipment provided by American Piledriving Equipment out of Conroe Texas has worked great on this job! The combination of service and service response time has been critical to the excellent performance and production of the DHJ 85’s.”

If you’re in Aberdeen looking towards Gray’s Harbor, there’s a good chance you’ll spot what looks to be like someone has been planting a field of steel towers sticking 80’ out of the ground near a Chevrolet distribution plant. That is the location of the SR 520 pontoons casting basin project. Kiewit- General and WSDOT have teamed up to develop 55-acres of land into what will be the dry dock for the construction of 33 concrete pontoons to refurbish the SR 520 Bridge.  21 of these pontoons will be the largest ever built in Washington State and reach lengths upward of that of a football field. To date, Kiewit has driven over 800 of the 900 18” and 24” diameter pipe piles. They first drove these piles to grade with their D62-22 diesel impact hammer and then cut the piles off internally with a custom made tool. From there, the crew would fill the piles with peat and begin extracting the tops with the APE Model 50 vibro, which cleared a path for their excavators to begin extracting soil out of the basin foundation. On the other end of the jobsite where the crew had already completed excavation, the APE Model 200 vibro is working to drive the retaining walls for the casting basin as well as assembling Kiewit’s work trestle.  I am proud to say that Kiewit- General has reported no major issues with the units in the couple months they have had they equipment.