US WICK DRAIN a Leland NC based company has just completed the largest marine barge installation wick drain project that has ever been done in the world. This project is part of the first phases of construction for a new port facility at “Craney Island” in Norfolk Virginia. US WICK DRAIN under direction of president Mark Palmatier installed 12,150,000 lf of wick drains in 6 months using the APE wick drain installation machines.
Now that’s 6 months with 2 rigs 24 hours a day 6 days a week! That’s a lot of wick drains. The longest wick drains were 150 ft. in length. Great Lakes dredging dumped a drainage layer of sand in the proposed wick drain area with hopper barges. The wicks will be placed and more sand dumped on top of them.
In order to place the wick drains in the correct locations on the water 2 barges had to be converted to have a grid all the way through the decks of the barges using steel pipe from the top deck all the way through the bottom. Each barge had a wick drain machine/rig on the deck. The barges would be surveyed into position and secured in position, and then each machine would go down the deck installing a wick drain in each provided hole.
Once these wick drains are installed and pre-loaded the engineers predict they will have about 21 feet of settlement. These wicked areas will support a series of dikes for the new Craney Island port. If wick drains were not used the dikes would constantly be settling and would have to be maintained at a large cost. This project gives US WICK DRAIN the most marine experience in the wick drain industry. APE looks forward to working with US WICK DRAIN on the next phases of the Craney island port. If you have a current or upcoming job contact your nearest APE branch to see just how much APE can offer to you.
