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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Commuter Rail Station Expansion

Challenge: Non-destructive integrity testing was required for the expansion of an existing rail line in Charlotte, North Carolina. The contracted firm, Blythe Construction, secured the services of GRL Engineers to perform integrity testing on the drilled shafts for the station construction. The project specified both crosshole sonic logging and thermal…

SR23 First Coast Expressway

Challenge: GRL Engineers, Inc. (GRL) was contracted by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) through ECS Florida, LLC in 2019 to perform dynamic pile testing and related services. GRL was the project Dynamic Testing Engineer (DTE) for the 26 bridges on 10.5 miles of new multi-lane limited access toll roadway…

Lynch River Bridge Replacement

Challenge: The Lynch River Bridge in Florence, South Carolina is one of among many bridges being replaced by the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT). The design for the 63-year-old bridge included the use drilled shafts to support the structure’s main piers. Project specifications required a two-level Bi-Directional Static Load…

Northwest Railroad Bridge Project

Challenge: GRL Engineers provided testing services for one of the largest freight railroads in North America. The Class 1 railroad company decided to build a second rail bridge over the lake, adjacent to the existing rail bridge to relieve the congested condition. The upgrades would allow the trains to run…

Replacement Bridge Over Buffington Road and NFS Railroad

Challenge: South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) requested bids to replace an existing 60+ year old bridge over Buffington Road / Norfolk Southern Railroad in Spartanburg County, SC. The existing bridge was structurally deficient and did not meet the current SCDOT design standards. E.S. Wagner was contracted to replace the…

I-480 Valley View Bridge Pile Test Program

Challenge: The widening of the I-480 Valley View Bridge was a design-build project for the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), with Walsh Construction as team lead and general contractor, and Jacobs as lead designer. The design-build team chose to develop a design-phase pile test program to quantify the soil setup…

Lake Marion Greenway Trail Boardwalk

Challenge: The Lake Marion Greenway Trail Boardwalk is part of a greenway system that links the Minnesota River to the North Creek Greenway through multiple parks, trails, and reserves. The boardwalk intersects a wetland area in Keller Park, which is referenced as a “high priority natural resource area” by the…

I-4 Ultimate

Challenge: The enormous, 21-mile long, infrastructure project, I-4 Ultimate, consists of 15 major interchange reconstructions, 74 bridge replacements, 13 bridge widenings, and 53 new bridges. Given the variable nature of the typically prevalent geotechnical conditions throughout the I-4 Ultimate project corridor, the selected foundation type to support the various bridges…

Harris County Toll Road Authority SH 249

Challenge: The Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA) project added 4 direct connectors to the existing interchange at SH99 and SH 249. The previous layout of the interchange required vehicles to exit the highway and go through stop lights to get onto an alternate highway, which inevitably caused delays and…

Seattle Center Arena

Challenge: The Seattle Center Arena, recently renamed the Climate Pledge Arena, underwent a complete renovation with the exception of keeping the original roof. The center was originally built in 1962 to host the Seattle World’s Fair. This renovation marked the arena as the first net zero certified arena in the…

Mukilteo Multimodal Ferry Terminal

Challenge: This project in Mukilteo required testing of drilled shafts and driven piles for the ferry terminal foundation. GRL Engineers provided pile driving monitoring of steel pipe piles and crosshole sonic logging of three structural drilled shafts. The previous terminal had been used for over 60 years. The state worked…

Tri-State Tollway Mile-Long Bridge

Challenge: The Mile-Long Bridge has been in use since 1958. It carries up to 150,000 vehicles per day over two major railroads, three waterways, several local roads, and over major distribution centers for UPS and BNSF Railway. The original bridge requires frequent repairs resulting in traffic disruptions as it nears…

North Madison Substation

Challenge: Perform measurements of accelerations and stresses in non-uniform piles during vibratory driving. Analyze and interpret the data as an aid in the investigation of weld fractures occurring during pile installation. Method: Vibratory Hammer Dynamic Pile Driving: The composite piles consisted of built-up steel members with an overall open cross…

1100 Broadway Avenue in Oakland

Challenge: Case Pacific Company in California contacted GRL Engineers to help collect high-strain dynamic measurements on two Cast-In-Drilled-Hole piles. The project in Oakland at 1100 Broadway Avenue, was initiated to update an abandoned foundation. The unknown limitations of the foundation brought the need to perform a high-strain dynamic test. GRL…

Milwaukee 7Seventy7 Apartments

Challenge: 7Seventy7 Apartments in Milwaukee. Wisconsin, consists of a 33-story building with two levels of below-grade parking across the entire building footprint. Timely and cooperative teamwork among the owner/developer, geotechnical engineer, testing agency, structural engineer, construction manager, and pile-driving contractor resulted in an efficient, cost-effective, high-capacity driven-pile foundation on a…

Harbor River Bridge

Challenge: Proposed in 2014, the Harbor Bridge replacement project required quality assurance testing. Harbor Island, is accessed through this drawbridge, located on US-21 in South Carolina. This vacation destination sea island was originally hunting land that had little need for incoming and outgoing traffic, which was sufficient for the bridge’s…

New Jersey Floodwall

Hurricane Sandy hit the coastline of New Jersey at the end of October 2012, causing millions of dollars in damages, including 750 homes impacted by the storm in Port Monmouth township, New Jersey. Due to this event and the other hurricanes devastating the coastline in more recent years, the U.S.…

Cairo Bridge over the Fork Hughes River

A study performed in 2015 proved the 18’-5” wide bridge in Cairo, West Virginia to be insufficient for the average daily traffic that the city needed. Placed on a major road, the bridge connects route 31 over the North Fork Hughes River and is considered a pertinent structure. After rehabilitation…

SR-19 Over Little Lake Harris Bridge

The previous bridge over Little Lake Harris in Central Florida had been in use since 1950. The original bridge that connected Howey and Astatula was a long, wooden bridge that opened in 1927. After the second span was built, the wooden bridge was torn down, only leaving a small dock…

Russell Street Bridge

Challenge: Inland Foundation Specialties contacted GRL Engineers to help predict displacement on a drilled shaft in sand, gravel and cobble deposits. GRL conducted a bi-directional static load test using calculated geotechnical nominal resistances through foundation testing Method: A bi-directional static load test (BDSLT) was performed on June 6th, 2018. Fifty-four…

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Case

Studies

Featured

Southwest Florida International Airport Expansion

Featured

Extensive Load Test Drilled Shaft Program with Integrity Assessments

Featured

Barrette Integrity Measurements for High Rise Construction in Paraguay

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