Green Corn Receiving Pits

By Thomas A. Marciniak
 

A new green corn receiving pit was recently completed at the Monsanto Site in Constantine, MI by James Ware Construction Inc of Sturgis, along with Morris Excavating of White Pigeon and Davis Contracting of Grand Rapids. The receiving pit was over 100' in length, 14' wide and started at 8' deep and gradually went to 11' deep by the end of the run.

With the safety of the workers as the number one concern, Monsanto and James Ware Construction were faced with the task of how to prevent the workers from having to work in an unshored excavation. The first option that came to mind was to use regular tight sheeting. However, a second option became available when one of the workers from Morris Excavating handed a Pro-Tec Equipment Rental Rate card to Dustin Schrock of James Ware Construction Inc. Schrock called Pro-Tec Equipment's new Grand Rapids store, which led to two onsite meetings between Schrock and Pro-Tec Equipment personnel regarding their need of a shoring solution for the project at hand. "After meeting with Dustin, it seemed rather cut and dry. They (James Ware Construction) knew what they wanted, and it was something that Pro-Tec Equipment could provide for them" said Tony Hamel, Pro-Tec Equipment Slide Rail Specialist, "all that was left was to confirm when they needed the equipment on site." That meeting took place on a Friday, and on the following Tuesday, the components for a linear Slide Rail system, measuring 15' wide by 103' long by 8' high arrived on site.

With a Pro-Tec Slide Rail Installer on site to assist the crew with the installation of the system the installation went quickly, allowing the crew to stay 50' ahead of the concrete crew. This was done by "leap-frogging" the system. This happened by first installing 5-16' long "bays" (a "bay", in this case, is the space created using two panels and four spreader posts), then taking the panels and post from the starting section and bringing them to the front once all the work within the first bay is completed. "Once we got over the learning curve of how to install the system, the Slide Rail system went in quick and easy," said Scott Thomason, safety director for James Ware Construction. The bulk of the work was performed with a Komatsu PC-200 and a fork lift with extended forks, which was used to unload the truck and feed the Komatsu panels and posts. "Once our crew got familiar with the system, we didn't switch them off, which also sped up the installation process," said Schrock.

Pro-Tec Equipment's Slide Rail system is a component system, made up of steel posts and panels (similar to trench shield sidewalls). For this application, the system consisted of spreader posts, panels, roller beams and spreader beams (placed between the spreader posts, allowing the system to stay vertical.) The system is essentially a dig and push system that requires no special attachments to install it.

The main challenge on this job was the forming of the walls of the receiving pit by Davis Contracting; they required no less than 10' of vertical clearance. Normally this would be accomplished by placing a sacrificial beam at the bottom of the excavation, between the spreader posts of the system. For this application, that was not an economical option. "What we suggested, and did, was to have Davis Construction use our system as a form, by putting small pieces of foam up against our panels and post," said Hamel. "This enabled our system, once the concrete had cured, to brace off the concrete. Allowing the concrete to act as the sacrificial beam, along with saving them time and material cost by using our Slide Rail System as the form."

"If we would have gone the sheeting route, the cost alone would have been more than double what this Slide Rail System cost, even if we rented the sheeting" stated Schrock. "That's not including the rental of the hammer for the machine to drive them in," added Thomason.

"This was the first time that we had used the Slide Rail system," said Schrock "it is a good system, along with allowing the work to get done, it made the employees feel safe. I would definitely use this system again if the need would arise."