Full Issue - Pile Driving Contractors Association

PILEDRIVER
Q3 2012 | Vol.9, No.3
Published for:
1857 Wells Road, Suite 6
Orange Park, FL 32073
president's message
Promoting Pile Driving
From Every Angle
By Dave Chapman, President, Pile Driving Contractors Association
P.O. Box 66208
Orange Park, Florida 32065
Phone: 904-215-4771
Toll-free phone: 888-311-PDCA (7322)
Fax: 904-215-2977
Web: www.piledrivers.org
E-mail: info@piledrivers.org
Published by:
www.lesterpublications.com
140 Broadway, 46 th Floor
New York, NY 10005
Toll-free phone: 866-953-2189
Toll-free fax: 877-565-8557
President Jeff Lester
Vice President & Publisher Sean Davis
Managing Editor Kristy Rydz
Design & Layout John Lyttle
Myles O’Reilly
Account Executives Quinn Bogusky
Jill Harris
Kathy Kelley
Louise Peterson
© 2012 Pile Driving Contractors Association. All rights
reserved. The contents of this publication may not be
reproduced by any means, in whole or in part, without the
prior written consent of the PDCA.
PileDriver magazine is published quarterly.
Visit the PDCA website at www.piledrivers.org for more information
or to download an advertising media kit.
Individual articles can be provided upon request to the
PDCA office. Requests should be submitted to the PDCA
via e-mail at info@piledrivers.org or by calling
888-311-PDCA (7322).
Please contact us by mail at:
P.O. Box 66208, Orange Park, FL 32065
Phone: 904-215-4771 | Fax: 904-215-2977
or by e-mail at info@piledrivers.org
Statements of fact and opinion are the responsibility of
the authors alone and do not imply an opinion on the part
of the officers or members of the Pile Driving Contractors
Association. Materials may not be reproduced or translated
without written permission. Direct requests for reprint
permission should be made to the executive director of
the Pile Driving Contractors Association.
Unless otherwise credited, stock photography is from
www.photos.com.
Printed in Canada.
Please recycle where facilities exist.
I
hope everyone who attended the PDCA
Annual Conference in Albuquerque,
N.M. this past April enjoyed the threeday
event. Congratulations to Steve, Lori
and Laurel as well as the Market Development
and Education Committees for a job
well done. If you could not make the conference
this year, I hope to see you at this
year’s Design and Installation of Cost-Efficient
Piles (DICEP) Conference in Seattle,
Wash. Don’t forget the Market Development
Committee has selected Orlando, Fla.
as next year’s conference site and I hope to
see all of our PDCA members there.
I would like to take this opportunity to
tell you about some of the things PDCA is
doing to promote the pile driving industry.
Let’s begin with the International
Building Code (IBC). The code is currently
up for renewal, which means the
International Code Council will receive
proposals to amend any and all sections
of the IBC. Under the current code, steel
piles can be designed to an allowable bearing
capacity of 0.33 times the yield strength
of the steel. If one does a geotechnical
investigation and performs a load test, that
value can rise to 0.5 times the yield stress.
A proposed change would have eliminated
the increase to 0.5 of the yield stress. This
would have given piles a serious disadvantage
against other foundation systems and
probably reduced market share for pile drivers.
PDCA worked with other industry
groups to develop language opposing the
change. Dale Biggers, vice president of Boh
Bros. in Louisiana and chair of the PDCA
Technical Committee, flew to Dallas, Texas
to debate the change. We are very happy to
say that Dale was successful in fending off
the proposed amendment.
The art and science of pile driving is
constantly evolving. Currently this evolution
is taking place in the design arena. The
American Association of State Highway
and Traffic Officials (AASHTO) Bridge
Design Manual has moved from the traditional
Allowable Stress Design Method to
the new Load and Resistance Factor Design
Method. Many designers who work for
state departments of transportation designing
foundations have questions and are
looking for guidance on this issue. PDCA
has partnered with Jerry DiMaggio, retired
chief geotechnical engineer for the Federal
Highway Administration, to put on a series
of one-day seminars around the country
to help engineers better understand this
approach. The first seminar will be held in
Baltimore, Md. on Aug. 24. PDCA hopes
that if engineers feel comfortable with the
new specification, they will be able to design
more economical deep foundations using
driven piles.
In addition to the recent changes in the
design code, there have been many innovations
in field testing of piles to confirm
capacity. The PDCA Education Committee
has put together a one-day
seminar that will bring in
If we don’t begin to fix it now,
our children will inherit a
broken transportation system
that will leave them at a serious
economic disadvantage and it
will be too costly to repair.
2 | QUARTER 3 2012
Photo by Ariene / Photos.com
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