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When Bowles Meets vulcanhammer.net 10 August 2008 13:37
Photos of Chickamauga Dam Lock Replacement 18 July 2008 11:37
YouTube: Vulcan Hammer Driving Pile for Western Marine 18 June 2008 15:50
An Update on a Vibro Patent, and Kudos to Weeks Marine 24 May 2008 15:02
Vulcanhammer.info Guide to Pile Driving Equipment Now In Print 22 May 2008 12:16
Five New Geotechnical Documents 17 April 2008 17:24
Sunday, August 10 2008

When Bowles Meets vulcanhammer.net

Recently an Engineering Tips member asked a question concerning Bowles' presentation of Brinch Hansen's method of analysing spread footings. The member could not get a reasonable answer from calculations based on Bowles' presentation of the method.

My response was to recommend a look at EM 1110-1-1905, which can be found here at the Shallow Foundations and Slope Stability page. The member found this to be very helpful and gave more reasonable answers.

I'll be the first to admit that Bowles isn't my favourite text, and I did not inflict it on my students when teaching Foundations. But any textbook is subject to having errors in it, or being clear to one person while opaque to another. That's why it's handy to have the resources available here, to act as a check or alternate source. And this site also offers primary textbooks as well, also for free.



Friday, July 18 2008

Photos of Chickamauga Dam Lock Replacement

Currently underway is the replacement of the Chickamauga Lock in the Tennessee River at Chattanooga, Tennessee. It is part of the Tennessee Valley Authority system of locks and dams, whose construction pioneered the use of cellular cofferdams in rock.

It is one of the largest applications of cellular cofferdams underway in North America. Below are some photos taken this week on the job. The contractor is C.J. Mahan.






Wednesday, June 18 2008

YouTube: Vulcan Hammer Driving Pile for Western Marine



Saturday, May 24 2008

An Update on a Vibro Patent, and Kudos to Weeks Marine

Back in March this site noted the ongoing litigation between American Pile Driving Equipment and International Construction Equipment over infringement of U.S. Patent 5,355,964.

APE proudly notes that this litigation has been settled in their favour and that they are persuing another alleged infringer (HPSI) of this patent.

There are two things of note here.

The first is that APE's patent and its reissue cited U.S. Patent 4,819,740, which came out of Vulcan's development of its high-frequency vibratory hammers.

The second is that, although use of dense tungsten inserts reduces the size of the eccentrics (and thus the machine,) it also reduces the rotational moment of inertia of the eccentrics. While this is beneficial when starting and stopping the hammer, it reduces the rotational stability of the eccentrics, which probably decreases the efficient use of the power to the vibratory machine.



While on the subject of milestones, congratulations to Weeks Marine for winning the Pile Driving Contractors Association 2008 Project of the Year Award for the construction of the APM Terminal Wharf Project in Portsmouth, VA. I was privilged to have been involved with this project, assisting Weeks Marine with their Raymond 60X hammer.



Thursday, May 22 2008

Vulcanhammer.info Guide to Pile Driving Equipment Now In Print


The Vulcanhammer.info Guide to Pile Driving Equipment is now in print and available
.

Driven piles are the oldest known form of deep foundations, and remain the most reliable today. Vulcan Iron Works produced reliable, rugged pile hammers, some of which remain in service after a century in the field. Now the hammers and the piles are put together in a complete reference that discusses all of the various types of pile driving equipment, including air/steam, diesel, hydraulic, vibratory and others. Extensive material on accessories and leaders is also included. A description of the drivability analysis process has a worked example to make the concepts more easily understood. In addition to this, extensive resources from the Vulcan and Raymond library are included, including the User’s Guide to Safe Operation, an expanded Data Manual, sections from the Raymond Superintendent’s Handbook, and field service manuals for Vulcan onshore and offshore air/steam hammers, diesel hammers, vibratory hammers and the DGH series hammers.

There is also a wealth of information on Vulcan hammers and other products at vulcanhammer.info. Several items have been added in recent weeks, including information on the Vulcan Expanding Mandrel and shell piles and the Vulcan Decelflo pile hammer muffler.



Thursday, April 17 2008

Five New Geotechnical Documents

There are five recently posted geotechnical documents now available:



Sunday, March 02 2008

Behind every great patent is...

The central purpose of vulcanhammer.net is to disseminate documents on geotechnical and marine engineering. But this news page also covers vulcanhammer.info, the page on Vulcan Iron Works, and this news item concerns that part, and specifically an item on vibratory hammers.

In a recent article on American Piledriving Equipment's (APE) website, they noted the following:

quote:
ICE and others, have copied APE's patented technology used on its eccentrics. APE sued to stop ICE from using the technology. The APE patent was challenged by ICE's legal staff. ICE ordered the APE patent re-examined, citing several patents as prior art.

The patent office reviewed Mr. White’s patent along with the so-called prior art provided to them by ICE. In the end, the prior art had no bearing on Mr. White’s patent and this patent has been re-issued in full force.

APE will seek damages for all losses suffered from ICE’s sales, rental, sub-rental, and package deals that were made using the infringing technology.

The patent in question is U.S. Patent 5,355,964, concerning vibratory eccentrics. As is the case with most patents, during examination prior art was cited, which generally requires modification of the application.

One of the patents that was cited in both the original patent and the re-examination certificate was none other than U.S. Patent 4,819,740, the patent that came out of Vulcan's development of its high-frequency vibratory hammers.

It's worthwhile to restate an observation from Closed Form Solution of the Wave Equation for Piles;
quote:
In any investigation such as this the ideal goal is to come up with something truly novel, and many of such works emphasize their novelty to the denigration of those who have gone on before. While in some fields of endeavour this might be appropriate, in this case such sweeping novelty cannot be claimed. This work fits the mould as outlined by Pascal above: it takes the work that has been done before, advances it a step while realizing that there are many more steps before "perfection" is achieved.



Wednesday, February 20 2008

New Marine and Geotechnical Documents

New Geotechnical Documents:


New Marine Document:



Wednesday, January 09 2008

New Books, CD's and Documents

The new year has brought some new things, commercial and free.

New Book: Laboratory Soils Testing, the Corps of Engineers' soil lab manual. When teaching, I used this in the lab. The students thought the free download was great, but printing out what they needed could be a pain. In a format smaller than 8 1/2 x 11, so when unfolded it won't take up the whole table and you'll have room to run the test. At $29.95, it's a deal, and may not last very long at that price.

New CD: Coastal Construction Manual. FEMA's classic guide to the subject. FEMA has been much maligned in the wake of Katrina, but had their advice on sound coastal construction been taken, a lot of the damage experienced in hurricanes would not take place.

This site is the home of free stuff, and there's more of that as well:


Finally, at vulcanhammer.info, the section on Vulcan Vibratory Hammers and Vibratory Technology has been greatly expanded, with information on such topics as sand and wick drains and all types of vibratory hammers. You'll just have to take a look to see what's there.



Thursday, December 20 2007

A Site Update, and a New Document

We've done a site update, in an attempt to simplify navigation and make some changes in the look and feel of the site.

The biggest change comes with the change in the geotechnical documents and software. When we started offering these in the late 1990's, it was proper to consider Adobe Acrobat documents as "downloads." This is now anachronistic; Acrobat documents are reasonably well integrated with HTML documents. We've thus split the document offerings into two sections:


We have not eliminated any documents in the transition; in fact, we have one new one for you, namely "The Mechanism of Liquifaction in Layered Soils" by Gregg L. Fiegel and Bruce L. Kutter of the University of California at Davis. This report was commissioned by the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory in Port Hueneme, CA, which was closed a few years after this report. This can be found in our Soil Dynamics and Special Topics page.



Tuesday, December 04 2007

vulcanhammer.net Marine and Airport CD Library Now Available

The complete reference library for marine, coastal and airport design is now available. Complete with many documents from the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, including some not found on vulcanhammer.net or chet-aero.com. The documents in this indispensable reference are:

  • A Single-Point Mooring System for Direct Pumpout of Hopper Dredges
  • Aids to Navigation Seamanship
  • Aids to Navigation Structures
  • Aids to Navigation Visual Signal Design Manual
  • Aids to Navigation: Coatings and Colors Manual
  • Aids to Navigation: Lighthouse Maintenance Management Manual
  • Aids to Navigation: Positioning
  • Aids to Navigation: Radionavigation
  • Aids to Navigation: Short Range Aids to Navigation
  • Aids to Navigation: Tower Manual
  • Airfield and Heliport Planning and Design
  • Airfield Damager Repair (Draft)
  • Airfield Flexible Pavement
  • Airfield Pavement Evaluation
  • Airfield Rigid Pavement
  • Bride Lighting and Other Signals
  • Cathodic Protection Systems for Civil Works Structures
  • Chart #1: Nautical Chart Symbols, Abbreviations and Terms
  • Coastal Engineering Manual
  • Coastal Sedimentation and Dredging
  • Conventional Underwater Repair Techniques
  • Corrosion Control
  • Design of Aggregate Surfaced Roads and Airfield
  • Design of Coastal Revetments, Seawalls and Bulkheads
  • Design: Aviation Operation and Support Facilities
  • Design: Dockside Utilities for Ship Service
  • Design: Electrical Engineering Cathodic Protection
  • Design: Graving Drydocks
  • Design: Moorings
  • Design: Petroleum Fuel Facilities
  • Design: Piers and Wharves
  • Dredging Equipment
  • Drydocking Facilities
  • Drydocking Facilities and Characteristics
  • Dust Control for Roads, Airfields and Adjacent Areas
  • Electrical Engineering Cathodic Protection
  • Engineering and Design of Military Ports
  • Engineering for Prefabricated Construction of Navigation Projects
  • Engineering Weather Data
  • Environmental Engineering for Coastal Shore Protection
  • Environmental Engineering for Deep-Draft Navigation Projects
  • Environmental Engineering for Flood Control Channels
  • Environmental Engineering for Small Boat Basins
  • Fixed Moorings
  • Fleet Moorings
  • Graving Drydocks
  • Guidelines for Marina Berthing Facilities
  • Harbors
  • Heraldry
  • Hyperbaric Facilities
  • Inspection of Mooring Hardware
  • Inspection of Shore Facilities
  • Maintenance and Operation: Maintenance of Waterfront Facilities
  • Maintenance of Fender Systems and Camels
  • Maintenance of Waterfront Facilities
  • Military Harbors and Coastal Facilities
  • Mooring Design
  • Mooring Design Physical and Empirical Data
  • Mooring Maintenance Manual
  • National Aids to Navigation and Chart Updating Study Guide
  • NSTM Chapter 096 – Weights and Stability
  • Operation and Maintenance: Asphalt Crack Repair
  • Operation and Maintenance: Asphalt Maintenance and Repair
  • Operation and Maintenance: Cathodic Protection Systems
  • Operation and Maintenance: Concrete Crack and Partial-Depth Spall Repair
  • Operation and Maintenance: Concrete Repair
  • Operation and Maintenance: Paver Asphalt Surfaced Airfields Pavement Condition Index (PCI)
  • Operation and Maintenance: Paver Concrete Surfaced Airfield Pavement Condition Index
  • Pavement Design for Airfields
  • Piers and Wharfs
  • Planning and Design of Roads, Airfield and Heliports in the Theater of Operations—Road Design
  • Planning and Design of Roads, Airfield and Heliports in the Theater of Operations—Airfield and Heliport Design
  • Procedures for US Army and US Air Force Airfield Pavement Condition Surveys
  • Protective Paints and Coatings
  • River Hydraulics
  • Seawalls, Bulkheads and Quaywalls
  • Ship Dynamics
  • Ship Resistance and Propulsion
  • Spar Buoy and Mooring Design (Preliminary Draft Report)
  • Specialized Underwater Facilities Inspections
  • Surface Drainage Facilities for Airfield and Heliports
  • Tidal Hydraulics
  • Underwater Cutting and Welding Manual
  • Visual Air Navigation Facilities
  • Welding Materials Handbook
  • Welding: Design, Procedures and Inspection
  • Wire Rope Selection Criteria for Gate Operating Devices
Click here to order.



 
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