The Deep Foundations Institute (DFI) Educational Trust and Underpinning & Foundation Skanska, a DFI member company and deep foundations specialists headquartered in New York, hosted a field trip for the DFI Student Chapter at City College of New York (CCNY) on April 17 to the Bayonne Bridge project site.
The project is the first time in history that engineers will construct a bridge roadway deck above the existing roadway, while traffic continues to flow on the deck below. The goal is to raise the navigational clearance of the bridge.
According to Lloyd Scott of Skanska, the event started with a presentation on safety followed by presentations by project engineers on various parts of the project including foundations, footings and superstructures. The students then went with Underpinning & Foundation Skanska personnel to the site and walked the New Jersey side of the mega project.
DFI Student Chapters are organized to allow student members to participate in improvement of the planning, design, and construction aspects of deep foundations and deep excavations. DFI currently supports Student Chapters at CCNY, University of California at Berkeley, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Missouri and American University Dubai. DFI members serve as Chapter liaisons to facilitate and promote DFI interaction with university students. David Coleman of Skanska and past president of the DFI Educational Trust, is the DFI member liaison to the CCNY chapter.
