Nominee
The Whole Project Team: AE2S, I.C.S. Inc., Strata Corporation, Beton Consulting Engineers
Category
Innovative Person or Team
Description
Strata Corporation is the NRMCA Member Company
Access to emergency water supplies available during times of drought is critical. This project is the first phase of a long-term plan that will provide a reliable emergency water supply during times of scarcity to central and eastern North Dakota.
The Red River Valley Water Supply Project (RRVWSP) will use a buried pipeline to carry water from
the Missouri River via an intake wet well and pumping station near Washburn, N.D. to the Sheyenne
River. The ICS contract encompassed site preparation and the building of an intake wet well near
Washburn, N.D., adjacent to the Missouri River.
The scope of work included clearing the project site along the Missouri River Valley banks; making entrance road improvements, including building mat and gravel roads, and building the intake wet well. The excavation for the wet well required a special drill rig for excavation, extensive drilling was required to create the cast in place concrete secant pile walls. The project utilized 3500 cubic yards of concrete
ICS Site Superintendent Dan Shirek said: “This was a unique project for us with multiple complexities.”
Josh Wieland, ICS project manager added “The biggest engineering challenges we faced were caused by working in an elevation below the ground level of the Missouri River. We had to manage an influx of ground water, while at the same time, building the necessary concrete structures.” It required pumping three million gallons of water per day via a groundwater dewatering system. The seal slab at the bottom of the well is mass concrete. The thermal properties of this slab had to be carefully monitored. Too large of a thermal differentiation between the center of the placement and the surface of the concrete would cause cracking in the placement.
Evidence
Strata Corporation is the NRMCA Member Company
AE2S, I.C.S. Inc., Strata, and Beton Consulting Engineers worked together to create a plan for placement of concrete seventy-four feet below the working surfaces.
The first step was to create a concrete that had a slow rate of heat gain. This would limit the heat created at the core of the mass placement. A ternary cementitious mix design, created by Strata Technical Services, consisted of slag, fly ash, cement, and hydration stabilizers. The thermal signature properties of this mix were measured by casting and monitoring a one cubic yard thermal block. With the thermal block information Beton Consulting Engineers developed a prediction model of the thermal properties of the concrete placement and created a mass concrete plan that included limitations of concrete and ambient temperatures at the time of placement.
I.C.S. Inc. developed the final placement plan which included the necessary coordination, equipment, schedule, and contingency plan for the actual placement.
The seal slab was instrumented with thermal sensors and monitored in real time by a web - cloud based thermal monitoring system. This system allowed the stakeholders real time thermal information thru a web-based portal and it would send alerts when preset project thermal parameters were exceeded or attained.
Protecting the environment was also a project requirement. Considerable planning and care were necessary while scheduling project activities due to the presence of endangered species. KLJ, an environmental consulting firm, developed protocols for these concerns. At times, depending on the presence, or migration patterns of a particular species of bird, work would have to cease until the birds had left the area for their protection.
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