Wilshire Bl Pile Driving

Workers assemble the pile-driving hammer in the lead (its housing) to prepare for pile-driving operations.

Not exactly high technology, but it works. A hammer pounds an H-beam (named for its cross-section shape) into the ground, driving the pile to its required tip elevation and design load.

Photograph Courtesy of Metro. © 2010 LACMTA

This worker controls the pile-driving hammer pounding piles into the ground near Wilshire Bl. Eventually, 16 of these piles will be driven in the ground near the Wilshire Bl/I-405 intersections.

Photograph Courtesy of Metro. © 2010 LACMTA

A worker cuts a whole in an H-beam to install a lifting cable used to raise the steel beam.

Photograph Courtesy of Metro. © 2010 LACMTA

A lattice boom truck crane holds the hammer housing erect. The Wilshire Bl pile driving was the first pile driving on the I-405 Sepulveda Pass Improvements Project. In the near background, Wilshire Bl carries traffic. This set of piles rest south of Wilshire Bl and west of the I-405.

Photograph Courtesy of Metro. © 2010 LACMTA

The piles average 74 feet in height and weigh 89 pounds per foot, weighing in at just over three tons. The onsite bridge engineer counts each blow the hammer strikes against each pile to gauge soil resistance to the pile. When the pile driving is complete, 35 feet of the pile will protrude from the ground, matching the location of the future embankment.

Photograph Courtesy of Metro. © 2010 LACMTA

Workers install a pile into the hammer housing before the pile is driven into the ground. The four completed Wilshire Bl ramps will have a higher traffic capacity, meaning Wilshire Bl traffic will be less affected by I-405 traffic. Flyover ramps will take Wilshire Bl traffic to the northbound and southbound I-405. Wilshire Bl drivers will benefit from elimination of weaving traffic at the on-ramps and off-ramps. Congestion will be reduced at the intersection of ramps and the freeway’s mainline.

Photograph Courtesy of Metro. © 2010 LACMTA