Case

Studies

GRL Engineers offer a wide range of deep foundation testing and consulting services, nationwide. Most GRL Engineers have achieved Advanced Level or higher on both the PDCA/PDI Dynamic Measurement and Analysis Proficiency Test.

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Southwest Florida International Airport Expansion

Challenge: The Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers Florida underwent a $1.1 Billion expansion in the second phase of the airport’s reconstruction project. The airport expansion was an effort to accommodate an expected growth in passenger traffic, and was led by the Lee County Port Authority. The first phase of the project was a $331 million expansion on the airport terminal. The second phase of this project looks to…
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Extensive Load Test Drilled Shaft Program with Integrity Assessments

Challenge: A project in Ohio for a large plant was initiated in 2023. A substantial test program was established. The goal of the program was to confirm the shaft design in compression, tension, and lateral capacity, as well as establish proper shaft installation techniques for production shafts. Integrity testing was used to identify potential anomalies in the concrete shafts. Method: The job was divided into three test locations, which each…
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Barrette Integrity Measurements for High Rise Construction in Paraguay

Challenge: A 55‑story residential tower in Asunción required measurement of concrete integrity for deep barrette foundations installed within a constrained urban site. The foundation system consisted of 44 barrettes, each approximately 36 to 40 meters in length. The size of the reinforcement cages, combined with limited site access, required an integrity evaluation approach that could be implemented efficiently during construction while minimizing risk to instrumentation and avoiding impacts to the…
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Tampa Bay Desalination Facility
Challenge: The Tampa Bay Desalination Plant, originally designed in 2007, has been providing millions of gallons of drinking water for Florida residents. To accommodate a growing need for drinking water, the plant has undergone an expansion with system upgrades. The new facility utilized augered cast-in-place (ACIP) piles for the foundation…
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Extensive Load Test Drilled Shaft Program with Integrity Assessments
Challenge: A project in Ohio for a large plant was initiated in 2023. A substantial test program was established. The goal of the program was to confirm the shaft design in compression, tension, and lateral capacity, as well as establish proper shaft installation techniques for production shafts. Integrity testing was…
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Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant
Challenge: The city of Honolulu embarked on an expansion of the Sand Island wastewater treatment plant to account for residential growth. The $180.5 million expansion included construction of a second digester at the facility, as well as raising the facility to account for rising sea levels. Hawaiian Dredging Construction Company…
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Ports of Indiana - Burns Harbor
Challenge: The $77-million expansion projects underway at Ports of Indiana-Burns Harbor in 2024 included the construction of a highway bridge leading into the port, three new ship berths, a new bulk warehouse, two new railyards, industrial site development, and comprehensive dock and rail rehabilitation. GRL Engineers provided pile dynamic load…
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Florida High Speed Rail
Challenge: The All Aboard Florida Passenger Rail was a private high-speed rail project that connected hundreds of miles along one of the most visited states in the US. The rail connects Orlando in Central Florida to Miami in South Florida, covering 235 miles. The trains operate at a speed of…
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Trinity River Railroad Bridge
Challenge: The Trinity Bridge in Liberty, Texas underwent reconstruction in 2021 to replace the aging components of the 523-foot-long railroad bridge. Originally built in 1904, the bridge connects two of the nation’s busiest ports in the cities of Beaumont and Houston. During construction, one of the drilled shafts experienced issues…
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West Virigina Shaft Bottom Cleanliness Specifications
Because of the relatively shallow bedrock geology, the use of drilled shafts has become a standard practice for the West Virginia Department of Highways (WVDOH) in West Virginia, the “Mountain State”. According to the Drilled Shaft Guidelines provided by the WVDOH, having an assessment of bottom cleanliness is required for…
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Central 70 Highway Project
Challenge: The Central 70 Project is a $1.2 billion endeavor to improve the widely used highway in Colorado. The project was started in 2018 to update the aged highway with 10 miles of reconstructed roads, add a new express lane in each direction, update the viaduct, lower the interstate, and…
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Offshore Wind Farms in New Jersey
Challenge: GRL Engineers were brought onto a research project related to offshore wind to provide deep-foundation expertise. The New Jersey coastline has been expanding its offshore wind efforts since the signing of Executive Order 28 from New Jersey Governor Murphy in 2020. Addressing the potential in South Jersey for wind…
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Scotts Hill Water Tower in Wilmington, NC
Challenge: The small community of Scotts Hill in Wilmington, North Carolina started seeing rapid development of new housing and road improvements in 2023. With neighboring cities nearly doubling in the last decade, Scotts Hill is beginning to see similar growth and is continuing development to accommodate it. Due to the…
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NASA Vehicle Assembly Building
Challenge: In preparation for NASA’s Artemis missions returning to the Moon; the largest single-story building in the world, the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, underwent structural upgrades and modifications to accommodate the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft. GRL Engineers, Inc. assisted Kingstruction-Advon Joint Venture…
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Radius Dilworth Overlook in Charlotte
Challenge: The Radius Dilworth Overlook is an apartment complex in Dilworth, a Charlotte neighborhood, that broke ground in May 2022. With construction to be completed by late 2024, the complex will house 352 apartment units and contain 26 floors. The complex will be the tallest building in Dilworth to date.…
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Unionport Bridge Replacement
Challenge: GRL Engineers were brought onto the Unionport bridge replacement project in Bronx, NY to provide various drilled shaft testing. This moving bridge, also known as a drawbridge, was originally constructed in 1953 to connect the Bruckner Expressway with the Cross Bronx Expressway. The new foundation included 43 drilled shafts…
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Toombs County Bridge Replacement over the Altamaha River
Challenge: Toombs County in Georgia took on a $60+ million-dollar bridge project to offer improved traffic flow over the Altamaha River. In 2020, GRL Engineers were brought on to perform bi-directional static load testing on a non‑production drilled shaft that would help assess the load capacity of the replacement bridge.…
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Pensacola Bay Bridge
Challenge: The U.S. 98 Pensacola Bay Bridge constructed in 1960 reached the end of its service life and underwent a replacement process starting in 2017. The previous bridge served approximately 55,000 daily traffic counts as an important east-west transportation corridor, and as a primary hurricane evacuation route; it was due…
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I-77 Canton Bridge Structures
Challenge: A large aquifer in Canton, OH caused difficulties in foundation installation for new ramp and mainline bridge structures on I-77. The design called for drilled shafts to be installed, but an early demonstration shaft indicated the aquifer created conditions that prevented the use of drilled shafts at one pier…
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Bridge Abutment and Boardwalk at TI' awh ah dees Park
Challenge: A small city in Washington known as Kenmore celebrated the renovations to a local park named TI’ Awh Ah Dees, previously Squire’s Landing. The goal of the renovations was to improve access to water while restoring vegetation for wildlife. New amenities to the community include pedestrian bridges and viewing…
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El Dorado National Forest Bike Trail
Challenge: GRL Engineers were contracted by Granite Construction to perform dynamic load testing on fiberglass piles. The piles were installed to support a bike trail at El Dorado National Forest. The bike trail spanned 5 miles of terrain with varying soil conditions. Parts of the trail bridged over a pond…
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Rehabilitating the Van Wyck Expressway
Challenge: Nine bridges over Van Wyck Expressway (VWE) in Queens, NY required repairs, major rehabilitation, and/or replacement. To address the structural repairs and facilitate future widening of the VWE, the existing conventional abutments were replaced with new abutments, constructed using top-down construction techniques behind the existing abutments. The new design…
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