Doosan Bobcat North America held a groundbreaking ceremony to commemorate the start of construction for a new $70 million, 600,000-square-foot manufacturing, warehouse and distribution addition to the current office and manufacturing complex in Statesville, North Carolina. The expansion project will double the facility’s footprint to nearly 1.2 million square feet and add 62 acres to the current 92-acre campus, making it the company’s largest manufacturing campus worldwide.

“This is an exciting day for Doosan Bobcat and our team in North Carolina. As the demand for our products continues to grow, this investment not only increases production capacity and enhances our network of manufacturing operations throughout North America, but it also positions us to support our growing business now and well into the future,”

said Mike Ballweber, president, Doosan Bobcat North America.

Hundreds of employees, along with elected officials and community and business leaders were on hand to celebrate the project with company executives. Among those providing remarks at the ceremony included North Carolina Labor Commissioner Josh Dobson, Iredell County Commission Chairman James Mallory, and City of Statesville Mayor Cossi Kutteh.

“This is a proud moment for the state of North Carolina. Today’s groundbreaking and the company’s continued investments in North Carolina is a testament to our state’s positive business climate and talented workforce. We thank Doosan Bobcat for their commitment to our state and for providing a safe and healthy workplace and promising career opportunities to North Carolinians,”

said Labor Commissioner Dobson.

The investment brings additional employment opportunities, economic growth, and community involvement to Iredell County and the surrounding area. City of Statesville Mayor Costi Kutteh praised the Doosan Bobcat workforce and the company’s partnership with the community through charitable initiatives and educational support over the years.

“This day demonstrates Doosan Bobcat is putting down even deeper roots in Statesville. We are very proud of what has been accomplished through the years and what is beginning here today. Doosan Bobcat has been a strong partner, and we appreciate their believing in Statesville, providing hundreds of jobs to our community, and continuing to invest in our residents and future,”

said Mayor Kutteh.

The Statesville operation’s current team of 400 full-time employees will grow substantially through this project, which will result in the creation of 42 new jobs in the first two years and up to 250 new jobs in five years for a total of 650 employees at full capacity.

The hiring plan includes production, manufacturing engineering, and operations positions, all of which offer competitive and comprehensive benefits packages, initial and ongoing training, and the opportunity for career advancement roles. The company has been active in providing leadership and support for vocational and workforce development programs to support manufacturing, engineering, and technology education.

“Since locating in Statesville, Doosan Bobcat has set the gold standard for workforce development programs through proactive engagement with students, parents, teachers and local government. Recognizing people as their greatest resource, they set an example of providing great career opportunities for Iredell County citizens. We look forward to continuing to partner together with Doosan Bobcat in our joint quest to provide the very best community to live, work and raise a family,”

said Chairman James Mallory, Iredell County Board of Commissioners.

Following official remarks, Doosan Bobcat North America executives used Bobcat equipment to move dirt in the ceremonial groundbreaking held at the site, located at 1293 Glenway Drive, Statesville, approximately 42 miles north of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Doosan Portable Power Global Vice President Lance Mathern praised the work and commitment of Statesville employees, the project team, and the ongoing support of state and local officials.

“It has been quite the journey to get us where we are right now, and I am really proud of the work of this team and the support of our partners, officials, and the community. We will look back at this day and know we were here when the ground was broken, which led to new opportunities and ready for what the future brings,”

said Mathern.

The design team includes Shultz + Associates Architects and Omega Construction as the construction manager. The project is slated for completion in fall 2022.

Within the new, connected addition, the expansion will add space for the following: manufacturing and warehousing; research and development; automated paint line; parts control and storage; shipping and receiving docks; open air space for product testing and quality control; additional parking;  shipping and delivery entrance; and finished goods inventory storage. The building’s design includes high exterior windows to provide abundant, natural daylight helpful for a quality workplace environment.

The Statesville operations have been a part of Doosan Bobcat since 2008, manufacturing Doosan Portable Power and Bobcat products. The announcement comes on the heels of an earlier $11 million facility upgrade at Statesville, which was completed in January 2021. This investment will enable the Statesville operation to help the company meet the growing demand for all Doosan Bobcat products.

In addition to its operations in Statesville, Doosan Bobcat has an extensive presence throughout the U.S. The company employs approximately 4,500 people at 13 facilities in seven states. Among its other U.S. facilities, Doosan Bobcat has engineering, research, and development centers in North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Arizona; a training facility in Colorado; their North American headquarters is in North Dakota; and there are manufacturing facilities in North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Carolina.

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UMA is working as a geotechnical subcontractor to A Fluor-led joint venture (JV) with United Infrastructure Group, Inc. The project, formally known as NCDOT I-26 Exit 40 to I-40 Interstate Expansion Project, will help to alleviate traffic congestion and improve the safety and operational efficiency of this vital stretch of interstate in the Asheville area.

UMA commenced work in September 2020 and will ultimately construct 15 soil nail walls of varying heights, ranging in square footage from less than 1,000 to more than 25,000. All are permanent walls consisting of epoxy-coated soil nails, bearing plates, and a decorative cast-in-place concrete finish.

The magnitude of the project required UMA to rely on several local material suppliers. The I-26 project was subject to the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Buy America policy, so UMA secured nearly a half million pounds of domestic structural steel for the epoxy-coated soil nail bars from Skyline Steel. Reinforcing steel is being sourced from Guaranteed Supply Company. Roanoke Cement is supplying nearly 2 million pounds of Portland Cement required to bond the reinforcing tendons to the surrounding soil and rock, and enough shotcrete to cover a football field with an 8-inch layer.

The widening project also required a wider, taller, and more aesthetically pleasing Blue Ridge Parkway Bridge over I-26. UMA was tapped to install 35 rock anchors for the new three-span precast segmental bridge.

“UMA is proud to play an integral part on the Fluor-United JV for the I-26 project. Our combined efforts will help to improve traffic flow in the area while also retaining the natural beauty of Asheville.”

says President Brian DeSpain.

An industry leader in the development and refinement of innovative polymer grouting techniques, UMA Geotechnical Construction, Inc. creates specialized solutions to assist clients with ground engineering needs that save money and minimize downtime. As one of the first to use lightweight structural polymers to improve subsurface soils at depths greater than 40 feet, UMA is uniquely equipped to deliver safe, predictable, and effective results. The team includes industry experts in structural support, earth retention, and soil stabilization with decades of experience, and is dedicated to ongoing advancement in the field.

The post UMA to Break NCDOT Record for Largest Square Footage of Soil Nail Wall appeared first on North America FarmQuip Magazine.

UMA was a subcontractor to Colorado-based Flatiron Construction Corp., which had been retained by the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) to build a 1.5-mile divided highway around Greensboro between Battleground Avenue and Lawndale Drive.

President Brian DeSpain, adding that the company utilized licensed engineers on staff says:

“The soil nail walls were designed in-house by UMA. The state identified the locations and it was up to us to figure out how to design the most cost-effective system.”

UMA submitted a proposal in November 2016 and began work in mid-2017. Its engineers submitted drawings for Wall 4 in 2018 and finished construction in April 2019. UMA is no stranger to working closely with the NCDOT, which represents the majority of its public sector work.

No Average Retaining Wall

UMA’s scope on Wall 4 was straightforward. The job was essential to install soil nails and temporary shotcrete facing to allow Flatiron to finish it off with a cast-in-place concrete wall. However, due to adverse geotechnical soil conditions, a simple install became increasingly more challenging. In a budget-saving triumph, UMA’s proven history and competent personnel made light work of the challenges. At just over 30 feet, the height of Wall 4 towers over you when standing at its base. Once completed, it is 42,000 square feet and just over a quarter-mile long.

To provide context, 12,000 square feet is an average-sized wall. Of the seven other walls UMA built on the Greensboro Western Loop, the average size was 3,700 square feet. At 42,000 square feet, Wall 4 accounted for 55 percent of the design-build project’s total square footage of 76,000.

“Most project prequalifications that enable your company to bid on a soil nailing project require that you have completed 2,000 soil nails in the last five years. This one wall is in excess of that requirement,”

says DeSpain.

Working in Lifts

How did UMA install soil nails on a wall that was higher than 30 feet in some locations? In lifts, of course. Flatiron handled excavation and the cast-in-place concrete wall, which required UMA to work between its crews for most of the project.

Flatiron’s first step was to cut the hill down 30 feet to reach the road base with an impressive fleet of four Komatsu excavators and 18 articulated loaders. This mass excavation ultimately exposed Wall 4.

UMA’s drilling crew worked the wall from one side to the other. Each lift the excavation crew cut out provided a successively lower working platform for the drilling crew.

 The Equipment Spread

UMA completed most of Wall 4 with a single drilling rig – a Casagrande C7 – one of the largest soil nail rigs on the market. The supporting equipment included concrete pumps, forklifts, grout plants, and a water truck. Despite having a single crawler drilling rig doing the work, UMA’s crew kept pace with Flatiron’s top-notch excavation team.

A balance was required to work in between Flatiron’s crews. The excavation crew, hindered by wet weather and cold temperatures, persevered to provide UMA with as much access as conditions permitted. The cast-in-place wall crew, on the other hand, required more time to handle formwork, pour concrete, wait for it to cure, and remove the formwork due to the sheer magnitude of this enormous wall.

Using a single rig on this massive wall was intentional, according to DeSpain.

“We designed the wall around the 30-foot stroke of the machine,”

he says, noting that this simplified the operation by allowing the operator to work alone without support from others.

“There were days where he was drilling 100 soil nails in a day by himself.”

UMA bought the Casagrande C7 Drilling Rig specifically for the Greensboro Western Loop project. It was the first of two C7s that UMA has purchased from North Carolina-based International Drilling Equipment. DeSpain says:

“We felt that it was appropriate to buy a new machine because of the size and the length of the project. We basically had one crew on the entire project for two years moving from wall to wall.”

The Drilling Process

It took more than 2,000 soil nails to complete Wall 4. The length ranged from 15- to 50-foot-long, although the vast majority were 30 foot. The C7’s 30-foot stroke allowed UMA to drill most holes with a single stroke. A chevron bit was used to drill and the air was used to extract the cuttings, leaving an open six-inch-diameter borehole.

The rig has no carousel to hold additional drill rods so deeper holes required the support of an EZ Spot UR grapple mounted on a mini excavator. The C7 would drill the 30-foot-hole and the grapple was used to set another drill rod to accommodate the additional depth.

UMA used approximately 61,000 linear feet of Grade 75 epoxy-coated threaded bar produced by Skyline Steel. The temporary casing was required in areas with collapsing soil and rock, but that was only about 1,400 linear feet. Of the roughly 61,000 linear feet of bar installed, about 5,500 linear feet were in rock and the remainder in soil.

Almost 800 tons of Type I/II cement was supplied by Roanoke Cement and mixed on-site with a Colcrete Grout plant. Aiming for a 1.85 specific gravity, a mud balance was used to measure the specific gravity of the grout and ensure the proper mix, which included Type I/II Portland Cement, water, and admixtures. Once the tooling was extracted, the hole was filled to capacity with grout pumped through a tremie tube, monitoring volume via a magnetic flow meter.

Once the grout emerged from the hole, UMA’s crew inserted the bar. Most of the soil nails were anchored by pure friction with the soil. Those in the decomposed Granite areas were bonded to the rock.

UMA’s engineers determined that five-foot horizontal by five-foot vertical spacing was the most cost-effective means to support the soils and critical structures behind Wall 4. The anchor pattern is based on several factors, according to DeSpain.

“It’s a combination of the soil properties such as friction angle of the soil and the surcharge loading that’s above the wall,”

he explains. The surcharge is the outward force exerted against the wall face by the weight of anything that sits above it.

The length of the soil nails is partly determined by the failure plane behind the wall, which is the assumed location at which the global stability of the structure could fail.

“The nail should be installed past the failure plane to bring the factor of safety up to the FHWA-required 1.5,”

DeSpain says. The friction angle determines the internal shear-stress relationship between the individual soil particles; a higher friction angle generally requires less nail length to meet the factor of safety.

Applying Shotcrete Facing

UMA’s next step was to install a four-inch-thick temporary shotcrete facing. Steel bearing plates were installed over the head of each soil nail while the shotcrete was still wet. That was secured with a beveled washer and hex nut. The corners of the plates had five-inch Nelson studs, equally spaced to transfer the cast-in-place load to the soil nails.

The four-inch-thick, 4,000-psi shotcrete wall was strong enough to hold the wall in place until the final cast-in-place wall was built in accordance with FHWA guidelines. DeSpain says:

“The shotcrete behind the cast-in-place facing is ancillary to this type of design, the temporary shotcrete isn’t necessary to the final design of the wall – in this case, it was a means to facilitate Flatiron’s cast-in-place pour.”

Flatiron’s cast-in-place crew took over at this point. They tied rebar cages to the Nelson Studs and assembled formwork over the shotcrete face. A 12-inch-thick concrete wall was then poured between the two to complete the finished wall.

This wall is what motorists will see when driving along the Western Loop, according to DeSpain. he explains:

“The cast-in-place wall is like an aesthetic finish. It basically finishes the wall.”

Unlike some walls UMA has designed and built with sculpted shotcrete, the finish of Wall 4 was specifically selected to complement the proposed sound barrier walls to bring an aesthetically pleasing view to an otherwise lackluster means of earth retention.

Unforgiving Soil Conditions

Soil conditions were mostly moderate with some areas proving more difficult, which allowed UMA to concentrate its efforts on the sheer size of Wall 4. A large portion of the wall was constructed in a low-quality decomposed granite, which is typical in this part of North Carolina. The remainder was a Piedmont soil, which is a reddish alluvial soil with silt and clay.

“This soil type has some cohesion so when you drill in it, it generally wants to stay open,”

says DeSpain, noting that UMA has drilled in challenging soil conditions ranging from the glacial till of southern Pennsylvania to the compressed seashells of coastal South Carolina.

“We faced challenges trying to keep the holes open in the fractured rock, but it wasn’t overly difficult due to the experience of our team and the specially selected drilling and grouting equipment for the project.”

Production soared because UMA assigned a large crew, DeSpain says:

“There were only four people assigned to the other walls on the project. We added more personnel on Wall 4 to not only deal with the size of this wall but also to increase our productivity.”

Teams were dedicated to drilling, preparing the wall for shotcrete, grout mixing, and applying shotcrete. The chain of command included a superintendent with several foremen supported by a roster of seven field personnel. There was also a field engineer to ensure load testing was completed, and quality control was adhered to as well as an assistant project manager for adequate material procurement.  A project manager kept the work on schedule and maintained the expected budget.

UMA’s production approach was to create repetition and eliminate uncertainty to the greatest extent possible,”

according to DeSpain. He says,

“We asked, how can we design the wall to be built in a way that is a repetitive process and can be constructed faster? We wanted to keep the bar and hole sizes consistent to avoid having to cut anything on site.”

UMA’s focus was to make sure crews could seamlessly select the appropriate materials, set them in place, and move on as effortlessly as possible.

Despite the magnitude of Wall 4, not to mention the other seven walls, UMA delivered the project ahead of schedule. One more future project will complete this beltway around Greensboro. Most drivers won’t notice the massive wall towering alongside the roadway as traffic flows along the new beltway, but UMA and Flatiron will remember the smooth partnership that turned a large hill into a new stretch of highway.

 The article was written by Brian M. Fraley Fraley Construction Marketing

Source: Ransome Attachments

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