A collaboration between the PDCA's Associate Member Council and Education Committees, each webinar will be presented in case study or educational format to a target audience of contractors, engineers, estimators, etc. The PDCA 2023 Value Driven Webinar Series will focus on driven pile case studies, technology updates, actual project conversion methods, job site safety, and much more to support those in the driven pile industry.

The webinar series is complimentary for PDCA Members. Non-PDCA Members are welcome and encouraged to attend; there is a nominal $50 registration fee for each session. An invoice will be sent separately when the registration confirmation is received.

August 10, 2023 | Fundamentals of Driven Pile Design Principles
Aaron Budge, PhD, P.E., Acting Dean, College of Science, Engineering & Technology, Minnesota State Univ.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has engaged in several performance monitoring projects to evaluate the soil-pile interaction phenomenon of drag load and down drag as new design guidance is being developed by the United States FHWA and AASHTO agencies. This presentation describes a project where a new bridge approach embankment was constructed over a soft soil layer overlying bedrock – perhaps the ideal conditions with respect to down drag development. The soils below the bridge abutment embankment experienced consolidation settlement and the bridge piling were subject to drag load. The abutment embankment was monitored for deformation performance and two steel H-piles, within the production pile group, were instrumented and subsequently monitored during construction and several years into service. Sensor response showed that the piles continued to accumulate load following construction as soils continued to consolidate. A computational model of the soil pile system was also developed to assist with the understanding of the field measurements and extrapolate performance behavior under different conditions. Lessons learned on this and related recent case-study projects relative to the down drag phenomenon are presented.

September 14, 2023 | Heavy Highway/Bridge Infrastructure Webinar - DOT Piles
Alwyn McDowall, Business Development Engineering, JD Fields & Company, Inc.
TBD, Gerdau
In past years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) performed an assessment of our civil infrastructure, and the results were not good. A grade of “D” was determined based on many of the failing bridges and outdated roadway conditions. FHWA & DOT agencies recognize scour as a leading risk to bridge structures. As a result of this alarming news, a portion of the long-awaited infrastructure bill has earmarked funds across all 50 states to repair and upgrade these failing transportation structures. This presentation will discuss the features & benefits of domestic steel pipe, H & sheet piles for highway transportation and bridge geostructures.

October 12, 2023 | Pile Driving with a Vibro Hammer: Estimating the Bearing Capacity from Vibro Driving Analysis
Gerald Verbeek, Verbeek Management Services
While it is a routine practice to estimate the bearing capacity of a pile driven with an impact hammer, this is not the case when the pile is driven with a vibro hammer. Quite often the assumption is that you need to finish pile driving with an impact hammer to get a capacity estimate, but the same process of signal matching can also be applied to vibro driving. In his presentation Verbeek will look at the entire vibro driving process and illustrate the signal matching process through an interesting case study where a pile was mostly driven with a vibro hammer, but then driven to the final penetration with an impact hammer. Signal matching was performed at the end of vibro driving, at the beginning of impact driving and then again after some additional hammer blows. This detailed analysis of the monitoring data illustrated that the monitoring of pile driving and the analysis of the obtained data can and should be the same, irrespective of the hammer type used.

November 9, 2023 | Understanding T4 Final Environmental Advancements
Rick Sadler, Regional Sales and Service Manager, ICE® - International Construction Equipment, Inc.

December 14, 2023 | Safe Working Platforms – What can they do for You?
Rick Marshall, Safety Director, ADSC
Modern piling equipment is becoming increasingly larger and heavier to cater to the demand for deeper and larger diameter foundations required to take higher load capacities. Unfortunately, every year, piling rigs fall over or are subject to near misses due to inadequately prepared and maintained site surfaces – all such incidents involve potential fatalities or serious injury to operatives and extensive damage to equipment.
Every single one is preventable through a thorough understanding of the ground bearing pressures which a deep foundation piling rig will generate, and how to manage these pressures through the construction of a properly designed, installed, and maintained working platform. The construction industry remains one of the most hazardous in which to work. However, many hazards such as a rig overturn could be eliminated at the source by implementing reasonable “design for safety” concepts. It takes the continued efforts of all involved to embrace this concept and help prevent the injuries and deaths occurring on deep foundation projects.