Full Issue (17 MB) - Pile Driving Contractors Association

The Inner Harbor
Navigation Canal
Barrier
By: Patricia Barnes, Bayshore Concrete Products
The project is massive; the timeline aggressive: The U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers is building a state-of-the-art
1.5 mile long storm surge barrier with three navigable
gates across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Mississippi
River Gulf Outlet. This is the largest design-build project
in Corps history and will be the largest project of its kind in
the world. This barrier is designed to protect lives, land and
property from the type of flooding that devastated the New
Orleans area during Hurricane Katrina. Officially named the
Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Surge Barrier, the project is
scheduled to be complete by June 2011.
After months of scientific and engineering analysis comprised
of more than 150 nationally known experts the best
design approach was finalized and the project awarded to
Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure in December of 2008.
Work began quickly in 2009 with crews working around the
clock this summer to maintain the tight schedule.
Shaw Environmental contracted Bayshore Concrete
Products of Cape Charles, Va., and Gulf Coast Pre-Stress
Inc. of Pass Christian, Miss., to provide the 66-inch diameter
cylinder piles required to construct the surge barrier. Bayshore
Concrete and Gulf Coast Pre-Stress are the only two pre-cast,
pre-stressed producers to make centrifugally spun cylinder
piles in the United States using the CEN-VI-RO method.
Spun piles were the technology of choice because an extremely
dense concrete, much denser than obtainable by ordinary
casting methods, results from the spinning process employed
in the manufacturing of these piles. The cylinder piles require
no field assembly as they are fully assembled at the Bayshore
Concrete and the Gulf Coast Pre-Stress plants Of particular
significance is the great structural strengths which permits
combined axial loads and bending moments of considerable
magnitude. Pre-stressed concrete piles have many inherent
qualities that insure a long life with no maintenance costs -
they are highly resistant to corrosion and to damage by water
action. These spun concrete piles are categorized as a green
product and these cylinder piles have a life expectancy of at
least 100 years.
The storm surge barrier is comprised of 1,267 cylinder
piles. Each pile is 144 feet long, 66 inches in diameter with a
six-inch wall thickness and 32 post tensioned tendons. Each
pile is made up of nine 16-foor sections that are stressed and
then grouted.
The cylinder pile sections are manufactured on a CEN-
• Q4 • 2009
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