MEMBER PROFILE – ENGINEERING AFFILIATE
philosophy to manage this risk by maintaining a staff of highly
qualified and experienced professionals.”
In addition, he says, over the past decade, the deep foundation
industry has changed as more contractors have expanded
from what may have originally been a core competency in
driven pile foundations and/or drilled shafts, to becoming more
involved with other specialty deep foundations, such as micropiles,
helical piles and augercast piles.
Notable projects
When asked if there is a specific project that stands out,
Underwood immediately mentions a project the firm is especially
proud of in Minneapolis, known as Flour Sack Flats, in 2005.
“This was the first project in the upper Midwest (and possibly
the first of its kind in the U.S.) to utilize driven steel sheet
pile as the permanent perimeter foundation wall for a building.
The building has two levels of below-grade parking and five
above-grade floor levels. Both the below-grade parking slabs
and the perimeter walls and columns of the superstructure are
supported by the sheet pile foundation. In addition to being
designed as foundation elements to carry vertical gravity loads
from the structure, the perimeter sheet pile walls were also
designed for both temporary (during construction) and permanent
earth retention.”
Since the completion of this first permanent sheet pile
foundation project, EPI has designed more than 25 projects
that use steel sheet pile as the permanent perimeter building
foundation walls.
“Utilizing the perimeter earth retention system as the
permanent foundation maximizes the building footprint on a
site and allows building construction in a ‘top-down’ manner,”
Underwood said. “Top-down construction reduces the need
for temporary internal bracing or tiebacks to support the earth
retention walls by using the building floor slabs to resist lateral
earth pressures. It also permits construction of the above grade
levels to start before the below-grade levels are completed. This
can save critical time during the early stages of a project.”
Two other projects that EPI is especially proud of include
the Blue Apartments in Minneapolis, and the St. Cloud Police
Station. In each of these projects, the firm was responsible for
the design of the sheet pile foundation system and associated
structural connections.
PDCA membership and the future
A PDCA member since 2011, Underwood says the association
does a great job of disseminating information on the piling and
deep foundations industry.
“We have benefited from keeping up-to-date with industry
trends published in PileDriver,” he said. “We have also
attended several PDCA-sponsored or co-sponsored industry
trade shows such as the International Foundations Congress
and Equipment Expo.”
As for the future, EPI’s plan for the next two to five years
is to largely mirror what it has done over the past 17 years. That
is, to provide high-quality engineering services to contractors
working in the deep foundation and earth retention industry. t
Photos courtesy of Engineering Partners International
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