ENF Feature Foundations avoid obstacle course Bon gue gee forms had been the only obsiacle between 2 22-story. air-rights building in Chicago and its foundations, i would have been sufficient to com- cate foundation work, But beneath the covered platforms and tracks is 2 maze of tun- nels—ineluding some sur- prises. Existing structures and the Chicago River hem in the rectangular site 90 that the most practical acess route for materials was by rail, and rail authorities would ‘only allow the contractor to take fone platform and two adja- cent tracks out of commuter service at any time during construction. ‘The numerous restrictions forced “straitjacket” schedule ing. “Rather than the conven- tional approach of working many operations at once, we knew we had to complete all demolition, then all caisson vk, and then all sirucural sect ‘work,” says Ronald E. Materick, president of ‘Tish- available as a pedestrian river crossing, and decided 6-ftedia caissons” would take up too much space. To get around this, SOM tapered the tunnel section of the caisson to 3 ft ‘across and put structural steel inside the caisson.sleeve “Penetrations at the tunnel were critical, especially at the river,” says ‘Tishman’s job Superintendent Joseph N. Victoria. “IE we fad failed to hold back the river, we could have flooded the entire down town tunnel system.” : Crews also had to avoid existing platform piles. To do this, SOM designed smaller caissons and crews tied them together with transfer gird- Diving in, Other challenge ing caisson work occurred at the water’s edge, where divers riled “underwater caisons near an old river bypass. For ths, Tishman bull a coffer dam and filed it with grout, leaving voids for the castons! Also, divers demolished some man Construction Corp.'s Chicago office and construc- tion manager for the job, called Gateway IV. Project architect-engincer, the Chicago office of Skid- warts of the bulkhead walls, ine drilling and rock jacking ‘were necessary in places. On the platforms, crews had to partially disassemble: existing parabolic steel shel- more, Owings & Merrill, (a Towers ==] puaza (SEG oULONG ters because they would have’ devised a grid of drilled, belled caisson piles that would involve only eight of the 11 tracks. Each subcontractor worked a platform at a time ‘completing work at all eight before the next subcontractor would Begin any work at all “Before we got above the [racks] we hed very litle flexibility,” says Materic For example, the caisson subcontractor could not begin any latform work until demolition work at all eight platforms had Fetn completed. The contrador then drilled caieons, capped them and temporarily patched each platform so it could be returned to service until the stee! subcontractor began work, Surprises. But even with careful sequencing, surprises snage xed procedures. In one case, five caissons were to be drilled jown the center of what turned out to be an unused 25-ft-dia tunnel, about 25 f+ down, which crosses the river. “Te was just too big to span,” says Norman A. Midthassel, “Tishman’s project manager. The city wanted to keep the tunnel 7” ENA/Aprt 22, 1082 Tracko, tunnels crlescrose airrighta building foundation, {te into the building obs y. The shelters are being replaced by a celling that is below a plenum under the building lobby. But because the platform shelters extend beyond the building plan, their ends remain and had to be temporarily supported until the building's steel columns—the shelters’ new permanent supports—were erected. ‘A new diesel exhaust system in the ceiling over the tracks replaces one removed with the shelters. In addition, the design had to comply wth rail platform ceing height minimum a 17 M11 in. Crews worked to within an tnch of restrictions in some places, says Midthassel. Space was tight in order to keep the lobby close to grade. i Although handicapped by anine-werbuilng trades ke, Maicrick says, foundation work took only two weeks longer than expected. But the obstacle-course site did add about 20% to the cost of the foundation, he adds. aDUDGEON jacks work! 7 (SINCE 1850) |Showa With Leck-Nut Adopter) BUY or RENT For information about: capacity 10.0 1,500 tons and delivery, please call Jim Woodin, (203) 327-7217 or write! * DUDGEON * TC Market Strest Stamtord, CT 06802 ‘iecle Number 9 on Reader Sorvice Cord ENR EDITORIAL REPRINTS Engineering New-Record wil be god make raable at nominal ceat—sopelet of the ‘magazine eltoal conte cre or pas. ach yeat, ENR handles requests for move (hom 280,060 sch editor repens. For quotations, wri to! McGrail Inc. ERR, Att Junie Austin Reprat Dep. PO. ‘oe 692 Hightstown, NJ. C8520 (6B) 488. 10 ‘Est $494, giving lforaton on the rile you with veiled. and inber of Copies needed. Menino oder fr evo ‘ade repeats $0 copes. 7 with most of the original materials still an old building?” Eustis asks, ‘This month, Sheraton will ask. the commission to reconsider the question. IE ic can't get the commission's o the city’s support, it says it will be forced to abandon the projet, Sheraton has a ready spent about $3.5 million on site acquisition, engineering and site work for the hotel o Test confirms caisson use ‘An unusual instrumented toad test on a downtown Chicago site has confirmed that ofien-used, high-beating-pressure, widedeled caisson that goto hardpan can eliminate the need for drilling to [rock. Soils. consultants on the job. say the caissons can save about $1 rnillion ‘on a typical Chicago high-rise. “Load testing of caisson foundations is generally not practical, due to, the magnitude of load required,” says Clyde Baker, vice president and senior princi- Bal gusineer, ST Consultants Lt jorthbrook, ill. He says in Chicago, only two load tests have been per- formed on caissons in the past 25 years and none on downtown hardpan, The code allows only 12 kips per sq ft for hardpan caissons unless tests. show ater capacity. This is often the case, though with less extensive testing done, ‘The fully instrumented test was used fon the 4l-story One Park Place office building, designed by A. Epstein, and Sons, Chicago. Schal Associates, Chicar 0, is the construction manager. ‘The foundation design incorporates a 7-ft thick mat foundation to spread loads to a combination of new belled caissons and existing straight-shaft caissons that remain from a previous buildin ‘The mat “provides. a ready-made large reaction {mass] for a caisson-toad test” says Baker. A stress cell was em- bedded in the mat before it was poured and two were also put in the test cais- son, to measure load pressure. When the building could provide weight to jack against, two hy- jacks with a combined capacity of 1,100 tons were used to load the ‘caisson t0 70 kips. Though the bell was originally cut ata 45-deg angle, “due to 1 atu instumontod test provides new dal additional excavation required, the final angle ended up closer co 60 deg” sys Baker. “But even with the bell we had, at the high pressure, it should have cracked and failed, theoretically.” The xeason it held up, he maintains, is because load calculations typically are made based on the behavior of caissons above ground, in an unconfined state. “When” you have a bell in hardpan,” says Baker, “the “unconfined” theory isn’t applicable, T think (our results are] an indication that, there is a beneft.to the confinement.” Baker says that in soine previously borderline cases, STS can now securely recommend caissons to hardpan instead of drilling to rock. O OLYMPIC. FOLDING BUILDINGS + 99% ASSEMBLED + SPANS 24°10 70" +1070 30" EAVES. + INSULATED TO R-21.53 + MOVE IT, REUSE IT “SEND FOR COLOR BROCHURE” OLYMPIC PREFABRICATORS GIONW 44th St SEATTLE 5107 206-784-9111 Circa Raumbor TE on Reador Sorvico Gard 28 ENA/October 7, 1982 Salt licks Cleveland garage A 12-year-old precast concrete garage at the Cleveland Hopkins “Intefnational Airport has been seriously damaged: by deicing salt, and the city is planning as much as $1 million in repairs, ‘Water and salt have apparently trick: led along the garage's double-T beams and collected at the inverted-T haunch- cs that support them, according to ait- port engineer Robert N. Volk, While ood ave the double-Ts themselves are in shape, some of the haunches spalled and corroded, he says. The city’s structural department has determined that there is no immediate danger, Volk says, but airport officials are worried about the effects of freeze- thaw cydles this winter, “We just don’t ‘want to take a chance,” he says, “We have ‘some haunches that we