The Deep Foundations Institute (DFI) announces that DFI Member Crux Subsurface, Inc. is the recipient of both DFI’s 2014 Outstanding Project Award (OPA) and the 2014 C. William Bermingham Innovation Award. The OPA jury selected the Sunrise Powerlink Project in California as the winner. The Bermingham Award, which recognizes innovative contributions to deep foundation technology, was awarded for the steel micropile cap design used on the same project. The award will be presented to representatives of Crux Subsurface, Inc. at DFI’s 39th Annual Conference, October 21-24, 2014, in Atlanta, GA.
In addition, Crux Subsurface’s Sunrise Powerlink Project won the 1st World Cup of Micropiles Challenge at the 12th International Workshop on Micropiles, held by the International Society of Micropiles (ISM) in alliance with DFI and ADSC, in Krakow, Poland. The Sunrise project was selected by delegates as the most innovative micropile project from five projects worldwide.
The Sunrise Powerlink Project involved construction of a new 117 mi (188.3 km), 500 kV transmission line from Imperial Valley to San Diego, CA. The alignment crossed a number of rigorous and protected environments, limiting 234 lattice tower sites to helicopter-only access. Crux installed 3,732 micropiles to support steel pile caps for 234 of the 421 lattice tower structures on the alignment. Customized drill rigs were flown to and from foundation sites, specially designed to break into components and allow for transport by helicopter.
Crux Subsurface introduced a unique steel micropile cap design as an alternative to cast-in-place concrete caps. The steel pile caps required less construction time and provided the contractor and owner with more flexibility over the critical path of construction activities.
