ONLY TOOK 5 YEARS! Since being introduced to Dr. Sriram Aaleti’s and Dr. Sri Sritharan’s UHPC H-Pile work during a presentation by Sriram when I was the piling committee chair, there have been countless hours.

Hours of brainstorming with Chad Saunders at Precast Systems Inc., launching a business to forge inroads in this market, partnering with a great supplier in Cor-Tuf UHPC, collaborating with a progressive owner in DelDOT (Jason Hastings, Nick Dean, and Scott Walls), consulting with geotechnical experts to look over our shoulders at Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers (Sitotaw Y. Fantaye, PE, Raj Chinthamani) and finding a contractor willing to take a little risk on the right job where we could replace a couple of HP12x53’s on a bridge abutment with Richard E. Pierson Construction Co., Inc. (Nicholas Hetrick, Dave Balcerak, Tim Jackson). A small scale mock-up but a BIG STEP in the right direction. In a couple of weeks, we drive these puppies and see if we can duplicate the success of those that have come before us paving the way!!!

UHPC is more than just overlays – precast piling offers a competitive solution to steel piles today where a driven pile is a proven pile and the durability of UHPC a value added benefit to owners