VTL
WHEN YOU NEED MORE THAN JUST LEADS
Precision Placement
Long Piles or Large Batters
Piling or Drilling
Rental or Purchase
600 Ferguson Avenue North
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8L 4Z9
Tel: 1.905.528.7924 Fax: 1.905.528.6187
Toll Free: 1.800.668.9432 (in Canada and USA)
www.berminghammer.com
Email: bfssales@berminghammer.com
New York
One of GZA’s largest, if not the largest, projects is the New York
Bridge Project, now known as the Governor Mario M. Cuomo
Bridge, and one of PDCA’s past Project of the Year Award recipients
(2016). The new bridge is a three-mile-long replacement
for the Tappan Zee Bridge crossing the Hudson River between
Rockland and Westchester counties. GZA, in conjunction with
HDR and URS, developed the final foundation design, pile load
test program and quality control review (QC) during production
foundation installation.
Prior to the start of the project, the project team developed and
executed a geotechnical subsurface exploration program along the
proposed bridge alignment. Up to six exploratory drilling operations
were in progress around the clock. Based on the results of
the subsurface program, the new bridge design included more
than 1,100 open-end steel pipe piles, with diameters of 36-inches,
48-inches and 72-inches, installed in 43 piers. The measured total
pile length exceeds more than 50 miles of pile.
Approximately two-thirds of the new bridge is supported on
piles deriving end bearing in glacial till or bedrock. The remaining
one-third of the piles, where the underlying bedrock dropped
off to depths of more than 700 feet below the existing river bottom,
derive their capacity in friction within the underlying deep
clay strata.
The 72-inch diameter piles, which support the main span towers
and the anchor piers, bear on the underlying glacial till or bedrock
at depths of up to 270 feet and provide nominal resistances
of up to 7,000 kips. The end-bearing 36-inch diameter and 48-inch
diameter pipe piles support the other piers of the bridge and provide
nominal resistances of up to 6,300 kips. The 48-inch diameter
friction piles, with lengths of up to 340 feet, provide nominal
resistances of up to 4,300 kips. At the height of construction, there
were more than 20 floating cranes spread out across the threemile
bridge.
More than 160 dynamic load tests were performed during the
preliminary test pile program and the quality control production
piles test program. In addition to estimating pile resistance at
the end of drive, the dynamic pile tests were used to confirm the
“setup” of the friction pile in the deep clay area. Setup results in
a nominal pile resistance that was about eight to 10 times of that
measured at the end of initial drive. In addition to the dynamic load
testing, the load test program also consisted of 16 static compressive
load tests and six lateral pile load tests of the three-foot, fourfoot
and six-foot diameter pipe piles.
ENGINEERING AFFILIATE MEMBER
New York State Thruway Authority
www.piledrivers.org PILEDRIVER | 59
/www.berminghammer.com
/www.piledrivers.org
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