GRI has successfully completed over 7,600 projects, which includes hundreds of projects for ports along the Columbia and Willamette rivers and Pacific Ocean coast, including over 90 projects completed for the Port of Vancouver USA. GRI has been serving the Port since 1993 and currently holds an on-call contract with the Port to provide geotechnical on-call support services. Our services have addressed new facilities, rehabilitation of aging or deficient facilities, and retrofits to improve seismic resiliency for docks, wharves, piers, and terminals; shoreline protection; and upland facilities, including commercial and industrial buildings, roadways, bridges, rail lines, utilities, and stormwater management facilities.
Representative experience with the Port includes:
Port of Vancouver USA, Berth 17 Rehabilitation, Vancouver, WA. The Port is rehabilitating Berth 17 at Terminal 5 for use as a layberth facility. The proposed improvements include new upland and offshore mooring dolphins, a new dockworkers support building, and new site utilities and pavements. GRI’s geotechnical investigation for the project included characterizing subsurface conditions for the project, evaluating the geotechnical capacity of the existing dock piles, and developing geotechnical design recommendations for new upland and offshore mooring dolphin piles, seismic design considerations for the new dockworkers support building, and other upland improvements. The project is currently under construction and GRI is providing construction engineering support.
Port of Vancouver USA, NW Lower River Road / SR 501 Trails, Vancouver, WA. The project included two segments of asphalt paved trail located on the south side of State Route 501 between the terminus of the Gateway Avenue Trail and St. Frances Lane. The trails included 12-foot-wide asphalt-concrete paths with gravel shoulders, a 260-foot-long elevated boardwalk, shallow utilities, and road crossings. GRI completed a geotechnical investigation which included a geologic reconnaissance, subsurface explorations, infiltration testing, engineering analysis, and preparation of a report. In addition, a geologic hazards memorandum was completed in conformance with City of Vancouver requirements.
Port of Vancouver USA, Terminal 2 Rehabilitation, Vancouver, WA. Through an on-call contract with the Port of Vancouver USA, GRI conducted a pavement evaluation at Terminal 2 to develop rehabilitation and reconstruction recommendations for approximately 6.5 acres of asphalt pavement. The pavement rehabilitation analysis was conducted to estimate the structural strengthening requirements based on the existing pavement structural capacity, the subgrade support conditions, and the estimated traffic loading. The structural analysis was based on: 1) pavement core and boring explorations, 2) Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) deflection test results, and 3) laboratory materials testing. Our geotechnical engineering staff found that pavement within Terminal 2 appeared to exhibit large areas of medium- to high-severity fatigue cracking, extensive non-load associated cracking, and deteriorated utility patches. These findings assisted the Port of Vancouver USA in determining that the majority of the pavement within Terminal 2 was in need of a full-depth repair.
