July/August 2021 - 89

Pile driving at south southbound abutment
Taking advantage of PDA pile testing
data from the northbound north
abutment, the team redesigned the
southbound north abutment piles by
increasing the number of piles and
reducing the required capacity. The
southbound north abutment redesign
added 30% more piles. This allowed the
piles to bear within the dense embankment
fill. This reduced driving lengths,
driving difficulty and splices. Adding
piles also increased redundancy.
The resulting pile lengths were on
The north northbound pier with pile driving templates
within the north embankment fill to
reduce installation time and costs. The
team and owner agreed that there was
little risk of detrimental effects to the
piles by allowing them to bear within
the embankment fill. Since the embankment
was placed over 50 years prior in a
controlled manner on a prepared
subgrade, it was agreed that the tops of
the original abutments could be effectively
considered as original ground.
the order of 50 to 60 ft (15 to 18 m) long,
approximately one third the length of
the north abutment piles. PDA testing
indicated the skin friction portion of the
axial resistance of the piles was
approximately 70%. Restrike testing
performed on southbound north
abutment piles indicated a setup of
approximately 10 to 20%.
Conclusion
The replacement of the I-91 bridges in
Rockingham, Vermont, required piles to
be driven through an unusually thick
and dense embankment fill present
from prior construction. Driving long
piles through such conditions to achieve
required capacities proved to be challenging
and time consuming. Moreover,
meeting conventional AASHTO criteria
to penetrate the fill into nature deposits
was not always practical. Using
dynamic testing pile capacity data that
was obtained from initial pile driving at
one abutment, a subsequent abutment
foundation was redesigned with shorter
piles bearing within the fill embankment.
The end result was considerable
cost and time savings for the foundation
project as part of bridge construction
that will end in summer 2021.
Dan Howey, P.E., is a senior project engineer for
GEODesign and served as geotechnical project
manager for this project. He has over 16 years of
geotechnical engineering experience.
Theodore von Rosenvinge, P.E., D.GE, is CEO
of GEODesign and served as geotechnical
principal in charge for this project. He has over 40
years of geotechnical engineering experience.
Tom French, P.E., of HDR is a senior
structural project manager and is the engineer of
record for this project. He has over 28 years of
transportation engineering experience.
DEEP FOUNDATIONS * JULY/AUG 2021 * 89

July/August 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July/August 2021

July/August 2021 - Intro
July/August 2021 - 1
July/August 2021 - 2
July/August 2021 - 3
July/August 2021 - 4
July/August 2021 - 5
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