Marine: $500,000
to $2 Million – ARC
Terminal Dock
Refurbishment
P&H Construction Corporation
By Chris Hensley, P&H Construction Corporation
The ARC Terminal Dock Refurbishment project consisted
of the restoration of an existing dock that was built in the
early 1940s. Originally, the dock and surrounding property
was used as a shipyard. Through the years, the dock began to be
utilized as a vessel loading, unloading and storage facility for crude
oil and other liquid bulk products.
There were two challenges the engineers of Cowles, Murphy,
Glover & Associates (CMG) encountered. First, repair the failing
dock across which all the loading and unloading operations took
place, and second, replace the backfill under the dock and behind
the deteriorated wakefield retaining wall to stabilize the tank farm.
CMG devised an innovative plan to use a PA60/19-700 combiwall
supplied by Skyline Steel and underwater sand backfill. The
combi-wall would be 1,236 linear feet long with a concrete cap and
fenders for berthing ships and barges. The wall itself consisted of
60-inch diameter pipe pile, 80 feet long, and AZ 19-700 sheetpile
65 feet long. By utilizing a combi-wall and backfill, the dock would
no longer be pile supported, but would be completely supported on
backfill and at the same time would also replace the backfill behind
the wakefield wall, which had been lost due to tidal erosion.
Construction problems and creative solutions
P&H Construction Corporation began the project installing the
combi-wall with an APE 100 vibro. Because the dock was in such
bad shape, the specifications called for constant monitoring of the
dock and adjacent structures to make sure nothing was moving
106 | ISSUE 4 2017