the grid layout with specific locations required to support the pump station equipment. “It was critical to make sure these (rock anchors) worked because it would be very cost prohibitive to move them,” says Crayton. “If even one failed, they would have to change reinforcing plans and the con- nection details of the slab foundation to the actual structure.” The Beretta was drilling a minimum 4.25-inch-diameter hole 15 feet down to bedrock with permanent casing supplied by Star Iron Works. The drilling crew had to focus closely on ensuring that the anchors were plumb and in the exact location specified. The material was higher quality partially weathered rock, although the crew hit a high-quality bedrock in a handful of areas. The team then drilled into bedrock with a 10-foot rock socket. “Our drillers are schooled enough to distinguish between the materials they’re drilling through,” says Crayton. “One drills a lot slower than the other and they can hear and feel the differences.” The Beretta was equipped with a down-the-hole hammer with a 4½- inch bit to drill the rock sockets. This tooling fit perfectly inside the casing, allowing the cuttings to be extracted onto the mud mat before being plowed away with Lakeshore Engineering’s Takeuchi skid steer loader. “We drill down into a specific rock socket, place our anchors, and lock them all to that slab,” Crayton explains. “That's how we end up with our rock anchor system.” Testing Anchor Strength and Movement UMA conducted two extensive performance tests to ensure that the anchors were of sufficient strength to support the pump station. Move - ment was also essential. “These anchors are basically like high-strength rubber bands,” Crayton says, noting that the anchors are designed to move. “Anything that moves has some sort of desire to go back to where it was. When they flood this pit with water, the anchors will keep the slab and pump sta - tion from rising.” Testing requirements placed some restrictions on the schedule. UMA was only permitted to install two anchors on the first couple of days, and conduct a load test to demonstrate that capacity was achieved be- fore installing the third. This pattern continued throughout the project. UMA was installing multiple corrosion protected anchors. The corro - sion protection is granted by several components within the anchor, in addition to the grout itself. The grout was then pumped to grade until clean grout was observed. “We worked with Lakeshore closely to help speed up their construction process and get out of the way so they could finish their job,” Crayton says. “The main way we expedited our work was to lock off the anchor to a mud mat using a secondary bearing plate.”
The double bearing plate system had one bearing plate locking the an- chor to the mud mat and one suspended in the air to transfer the loading to the foundation. UMA was able to get all of the testing completed at one time under the initial mobilization. This permitted Lakeshore Engineering to set a bearing plate at a certain elevation and pour the structural slab without having to wait on a remobilization for final stressing. This allowed a majority of the elastic elongation to occur prior to the final placement of slab, ultimately saving the contractor time and money. Batching and Grouting to Lock in Anchors UMA grouted the rock anchors in place. The material was mixed in a batch plant on site with a specific gravity of 1.85 to 1.86. Its team is trained to check specific gravity prior to pumping, and a third-party contractor was retained to take samples and ensure quality control. This standard mix was one that UMAwas accustomed to, and achieved the strengththat was required on this project. The spec called for a minimum of 3,500 psi at three days and 5,000 psi at 28 days. Most of UMA’s soil nail projects require larger material quantities and hole diameters, and also deeper drilling. “The crew that was doing this job came off of a year-long soil nail project so they were used to drill- ing 30-foot-long, six-inch diameter holes, and four batches of grout at a time,” says Crayton. “There's a pretty big difference between a rock anchor job and a soil nail job, and our crew adapted well to the switch.” The grout was pumped through tremie pipe to the bottom of the hole from within the casing. The casing sections were installed with the Beretta drilling rig, which was equipped with a special adaptor. UMA was performing a duplex drilling process, which involves drilling the casing and the hole concurrently. Once rock was hit, the casing was halted, and drilling continued with the inner rod. UMA workers fed casing to the drilling rig by hand. “Normally we would use an EZ Spot UR attachment on the excavator to handle large casing sections,” Crayton says. “We had to use smaller pieces on this job because we didn't have the real estate to put them in the pit with us.” The majority of UMA’s work on the Blankets Creek Pump Station project was done within a week and completed on schedule. Despite the technical nature of the work, the distance between the jobsite in Georgia and UMA headquarters in Colfax, North Carolina was the true challenge. “Making sure that everyone who needed to observe different processes was onsite during the installation and load testing was our greatest chal- lenge,” says Crayton. That's generally the hardest aspect of most of our projects: the distance between the field where the actual work is done and the office where the computers are required to do the analysis.”
26
csengineermag.com
DECEMBER 2021
Made with FlippingBook Annual report