The Rose Bowl

Project #11150

The Rose Bowl is an outdoor athletic stadium in Pasadena, California, just outside Los Angeles. Built in 1922 among the San Gabriel Mountains in the Arroyo Seco of Los Angeles County, the stadium is recognized as a United States National Historic Landmark and a California Historic Civil Engineering landmark. At a modern capacity of an all-seated configuration at 88,500 the Rose Bowl is the 17th-largest stadium in the world, the 11th-largest stadium in the United States, and the 11th-largest NCAA stadium. D.J. Scheffler & Nye, Inc. was selected by General Contractor Angeles Contractor, Inc. to provide the equipment and manage the installation of the following :

  • (27) 36” Diameter drilled piles x 10’ (270 LF)
  • (12) 48” Diameter drilled piles x 60’ (720 LF)
  • (28) 54” Diameter drilled piles x 20’ to 80’ (1,120 LF)
  • (11) Micropiles, each approximately 55’ deep, for 110 Kip loading (605 LF)
 
 

THE GRAND CANYON SKYWALK

Project #24015AZ

The Grand Canyon Skywalk is the newest tourist attraction in Grand Canyon West, about 124 miles east of Las Vegas. The new Skywalk, a glass-bottom horseshoe-shaped bridge, cantilevers over the edge of the Grand Canyon, 3,937 feet above the Colorado River, and protrudes 65 feet from the rim at its extremity.

The horseshoe-shaped glass-steel construction is designed for a maximum load of 35,000 tons. It withstands wind forces of up to 100 miles/hour and earthquakes of magnitude 8 within a distance of 46 miles.

A special proposal by D.J. Scheffler & Nye, Inc. resulted in the use of micro-piles to anchor the foundations instead of simply drilled foundation piers. The engineers involved welcomed this suggestion since the use of micro-piles was also the most economical solution. The high-strength cement grout required for the installation of the micro-piles could be directly mixed on site and subjected to local quality control. If concrete piles had been used, significantly larger quantities of ready-mixed concrete would have been necessary. In addition, due to the long transportation route, this concrete would have been about to set at the time of its arrival on the construction site.

Since the bridge was founded in massive original sandstone, micro-piles utilizing high strength 2.5 inch diameter threaded steel bars could be used. The giant steel girder for the Skywalk skeleton was welded together on the rim of the canyon and subsequently anchored, freely floating above the Grand Canyon in a jack-and-roll action.