Small System
Offers Big
POTENTIAL
Berminghammer Foundation Equipment’s
EML 45 gets into small spaces
Ask any contractor about the biggest challenges
they must deal with in the course of their
work and there’s a pretty good chance working
on or near a large body of water will come
up in the conversation.
You won’t get an argument on that count from Patrick
Chicoine, project director for Quebec-based Construction
Polaris CMM, Inc. Polaris is the lead contractor for a new,
two-lane bridge being built near the town of Papineauville
in the southern region of la belle province.
As part of the project, Polaris built a temporary bridge
beside the existing bridge that spanned the Petite-Nation
River near Highway 50. The old bridge was then demolished
and is being replaced by a new steel crossing that will
feature a concrete deck with two lanes of traffic and two
shoulder lanes. Work is scheduled to finish this summer.
“It’s not unusual for us to do that kind of job, but
it’s always a challenge when you have a lot of water to
control like that,” Chicoine said. “You can’t always see
what you’re doing with that kind of work. You’ve also
got to keep your guys safe.”
What makes this project particularly challenging
is the limited amount of space where the bridge abutments
needed to be built and where the equipment to
construct them can be mobilized.
That’s why Polaris approached Hamilton, Ont.-based
Berminghammer Foundation Equipment for help.
Polaris needed to drive a total of 48 16-inch pipe piles
between 80 and 120 feet deep as part of the bridge’s
foundation, but knew that a crane-mounted piling
system simply wasn’t feasible. Getting a crane to where
it was required would have been extremely difficult and
the mobilization costs would have been prohibitive for
the number of piles required for the project.
The solution? The EML 45, an excavator-mounted
piling system introduced by Berminghammer in 2019.
By Jim Timlick
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
PILING CANADA 57