The Port of Davisville at Quonset Business Park in North Kingstown is a busy place, with tens of thousands of cars unloaded from ships each year. In February 2010, the park received $22.3 million in federal Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER, money to upgrade infrastructure at the park and port.
Some of that stimulus money is going toward work at Pier 1 with GZA GeoEnvironmental Inc. overseeing much of the engineering work. Dino Fiscaletti, a senior projects manager at the company, recently took some time to discuss the work at the port.
PBN: What exactly is GZA’s role in the Quonset TIGER work?
FISCALETTI: GZA is one of five engineering firms selected by Quonset Development Corporation to prepare construction documents for infrastructure improvements that are to be funded by the TIGER grants. Our role is to provide marine structural engineering services to QDC for the rehabilitation of Pier No. 1 at the Port of Davisville. The main objective of GZA’s work is to keep the pier operational for years to come by identifying and addressing any potential structural and functional deficiencies.
Pier No. 1 is roughly seven acres of pile-supported concrete deck that extends approximately a quarter mile out over Narragansett Bay. Originally a U.S. Navy pier, it now provides berthing space for cargo ships and a staging area for the new, imported cars that roll off of these ships.
Sixty years of use in the marine environment have taken their toll on the pier. Maintenance and rehabilitation programs have been undertaken in the past but it’s a never-ending process just to keep up.
With the TIGER funds, QDC has an opportunity not only to maintain their facility, but to make significant improvements. That’s where GZA comes in. For several weeks last fall we had engineers at Pier 1 conducting a condition survey of the concrete deck and evaluating the existing fender system and mooring hardware. A fender system protects a pier from damage by absorbing the energy of a ship in motion as the ship bears against a pier. A sub-consultant, Jacobs Engineering, was employed to evaluate pier lighting.
We used our survey results, understanding of facility operations and previous experience at Pier No. 1 to formulate a basis of design for pier improvements. We have since provided QDC with construction documents that detail the rehabilitation of the entire concrete deck, the installation of a more efficient lighting system and the replacement of the fender system along approximately 1000 linear feet of berthing space.
PBN: Do you need to pay attention to anything in the design given the cargo that moves through the port?
FISCALETTI: The cargo does not impact the design nearly as much as the cargo carriers. Ships up to 650 feet in length and displacing more than 36,000 tons visit Pier No. 1 on a regular basis. The critical loading on the pier occurs when the ship is berthing, or maneuvering into position to stop against the pier so that it can drop its ramps and unload. Ships of this size are brought in slowly under the direction of two tugboats, but there is still a great deal of energy involved. The function of an efficient fender system is to absorb a majority of this energy and to minimize the berthing force transmitted to the pier.
As part of the TIGER work, GZA has designed a new efficient fender system that will absorb more berthing energy while transmitting less force to the pier. By reducing berthing forces, wear and tear on the structure is reduced and its service life is extended.
Cargo moving through the port – new VWs, Audis, Subarus, Porsches and the occasional Bentley – will have a greater impact during construction than it did during design. Remember, this was a Navy pier. It was designed to handle loads much greater than cars but because the pier must remain operational throughout the construction process, much attention was paid to cargo flow and traffic patterns. A phased construction schedule was developed to provide sufficient cargo staging areas, travel lanes and defined work zones to allow ships to berth, cars to off-load and heavy equipment to maneuver, all within the confines of Pier No. 1. The greatest challenge was sequencing fender removal and replacement to insure that there were enough fender units on the pier at any one time to allow for safe berthing operations.
Another item that had to be addressed was the protection of the new cars from construction debris and dust. Barriers will need to be set up and measures will need to be taken by the construction contractor to keep the new cars clean and dent free.
PBN: Has GZA undertaken work at Quonset before?
FISCALETTI: GZA’s experience at Quonset goes back more than 25 years. To date, the cumulative experience of GZA personnel includes over 30 projects. More than half of these projects were completed directly for the Quonset Development Corporation or for the previous administration at Quonset, the R.I. Port Authority. Others were performed for tenants at the park or for other government agencies.
Though a number of projects in our portfolio are located at or adjacent to Pier No. 1, our experience is not limited to the Davisville waterfront or to marine engineering. GZA has worked throughout the park performing geotechnical investigations, foundation designs, environmental remediation and site assessments.
PBN: Has that previous work helped with the current planning? If so, how?
FISCALETTI: Previous experience has helped immensely. The more you work at a facility, the more you learn about its nuances and peculiarities. This is particularly true of old structures. Working on an old pier can be a lot like playing the left field wall at Fenway. It looks manageable but you’ve got to be ready for some crazy bounces. Just when you think you’ve got things figured out there’s another angle that seems to show up out of nowhere. You’ll discover something that isn’t found in any plan.
Having been under Pier No. 1 previously, we knew what to expect and could plan accordingly. In many areas, there’s barely three feet of clearance between the rows of timber piles that support the pier. This forced us to perform parts of the condition survey from a johnboat and a kayak. It was the only way to get where we had to go.
We also had to work the tides, the weather and the traffic. We knew going in that there would be days when we would not be able to work. You just can’t get under Pier No. 1 at high tide. Wind out of the south means you’d better plan on working anywhere but the south berth. A ship in port means you’re not working the north berth that day. Most of our visits were preceded by a call to Port Security to ask if a ship was due in or if the pier was covered with cars.
Our previous work was also a big help in developing the construction schedule. Having first-hand knowledge of the operational, logistical and security requirements that come into play when a ship is in port allowed for the development of a workable construction sequence without going through numerous iterations.
PBN: So in the grand scheme of things, is this a significant project for the business park and port?
FISCALETTI: This is a project of major proportions for the business park, the Port of Davisville, the state of Rhode Island and GZA. The Port of Davisville is responsible for $119 million of annual business output to the state and over 1,000 direct and indirect jobs. Several of those indirect jobs are currently located at GZA.
In 2010, Davisville was ranked eighth in the country in volume for imported cars. To put that into perspective, last year 134,575 cars came into the country through Davisville while 144,995 passed through the Port of Los Angeles. That’s pretty good company to be in. With improvements, the Port of Davisville has the potential to move 300,000 cars a year. The work being funded by the TIGER grants will help position the port closer to realizing its potential. Part of the TIGER work involves dedicating other areas of the port to short-seas shipping and the offshore wind industry. This means more pressure will be put on Pier No. 1 to accommodate additional cars, making it essential that facilities at the pier be maintained and updated.
Improvements to the infrastructure at the port will keep Rhode Islanders working and will help keep the economy rolling. All of GZA’s work at the port has been performed by Rhode Islanders working out of our Providence office so we at GZA are proud to be a part of the improvements at the Port of Davisville.
