California Incline – Santa Monica, California

This reconstruction project combines CIDH foundations for a new roadway deck with soil nails for bluff stabilization. Both work scopes involved challenging access conditions. The eroding bluff extends 100-ft. above the incline roadway grade and is stabilized by 1,000 soils nails up to 75-ft in length, installed using high reach drill rigs and a crane-suspended work platform. The platform is custom fabricated with an Atlas Copco ECM590 air-track drilling mast equipped with a rotary and rod system specifically designed for this project and includes unique features for load distribution and spoil management controls. Each nail head is cut-off behind the slope face and patched with colored grout to minimize visual impact. The new roadway deck is supported on 19 bents, with a total of 89 each CIDH piles. Many of the 30-in. dia. piles were drilled through cut-outs in the original bridge deck, however piles at the down slope edge frequently required the LoDrill to reach out beyond the platform. Our Los Angeles team developed custom solutions to safely and efficiently tackle this challenging project.

For more information, please contact Steven Lapsley at slapsley@malcolmdrilling.com