Important projects
Alaska
One of the most remote projects would be the new city dock in Old
Harbor on Kodiak Island in Alaska. At Old Harbor, GZA worked
with Pacific Pile and Marine (PPM) to test every 24-inch, 30-inch
and 36-inch diameter, galvanized-coated pipe pile installed for a
new dock. The new dock replaced an aging timber pile supported
dock structure and was expanded to extend approximately 300 feet
off-shore with a 20-foot wide trestle leading to a 60-foot by 100-
foot dock face equipped with berthing dolphins to accommodate
larger vessels. The intent was to provide a fueling and supplying
station for the shipping industry and improve the town’s economy.
The project needed to be completed within a three-month work
window to minimize the impact to the environmentally sensitive
site. Due to the time constraints and the absence of sufficient subsurface
data, each production pile was dynamically monitored to
provide the engineer with pile capacity information required to
keep the project moving forward. Information flow was critical to
keep the project schedule on track.
PPM and GZA met the tight schedule by working 12-hour shifts,
seven days a week. Data and analyses were transmitted back to
GZA’s Norwood office through satellite communication and the
PDA reports were available the subsequent morning for engineer
approval. The four-hour time differential between GZA headquarters
in Norwood and Old Harbor supported this critical data flow.
ENGINEERING AFFILIATE MEMBER
Photo: GZA
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