New LS-208H II crane quickly replaces washed out bridge
Kane County, Ill. (December 1999) — In a few hours, eight inches of rainfall
struck Kane County, Illinois. When it did, the bridge over Coon Creek on
Allen Road in Hampshire Township was washed out. This narrow, two-lane,
“farm-to-market” road near the town was reconstructed in 1946 to
replace the original bridge built in 1917.
Time was of the essence with this project. Because of the loss of the bridge, many Kane County residents’ lives were disrupted. New bridges aren’t designed and built overnight, even small ones. The county wasted no time and soon had the design for a new precast concrete deck structure up and out for competitive bidding.
Kustom Construction Co. of Lombard, Ill., won the
bid and quickly began work on the 32-ft. wide by 175-ft. long bridge. The
new bridge is comprised of two poured-in-place concrete piers, two
poured-in-place abutments and a precast concrete deck slabs. The piers and
the abutments are supported on 28, 12-in. diameter, concrete filled shell
pile driven from 42 to 60 ft. deep with a bearing of 40 tons. An excavator
was brought in to remove of the remains of the old bridge and the
earthwork excavation. A new Link-Belt LS-208H II with a 140-ft. boom,
90-ft. leads and an air-powered pile hammer was brought in to drive the
pile.
Once the pilings were in place and the leads removed, the same machine was used to pour the concrete for the pile, the abutments and the piers. Almost as soon as these were cured, the new 80-ton capacity Link-Belt crane was used to place the 16,000 to 21,000 lbs. precast concrete deck panels. Prestress Engineering Co. of Blackstone, Ill. fabricated the deck panels. The heaviest end-panels were placed by Kustom’s Link-Belt LS-208H II at a 60 ft. radius with a 60 degree boom angle. The company began work in October and completed the bridge by early December. The bridge deck panels were placed during mid-November.
“It’s a really good feeling when you have a crane as good as the Link-Belt LS-208H II to do the placement. Everything fits just like the engineers drew it and the precast contractor built them. Our crew knew what they were doing and everything went just like clockwork,” commented Gene Kus, Vice President, Kustom Construction.
The Hampshire Township Bridge that was built for the Kane County Department of Transportation is a typical bridge for Kustom. It’s in a rural location on a very restricted right-of-way. Kustom first had to gain permission from the landowner to build a short diversion of Coon Creek, which was needed as a temporary crossing for our equipment. “We had absolutely beautiful working conditions. There was no rainfall at all during the critical construction period. If there had been, it could have set our tight schedule back significantly,” said Kus.
Kustom has additional bridge work plans for their new lattice boom crawler crane. “We’re moving the Link-Belt crane to another bridge rehab project in the south end of Kane County next and from there to DuPage County for a new bicycle-pedestrian bridge over the East Branch of the DuPage River. That’s a 100-foot long structure that also requires us to drive more shell pile. After that, we have another bridge in Elgin that also requires a pile foundation.”
“We got the new Link-Belt LS-208H II from McAllister Equipment Co. on a long term rental. It just came in the day I called our salesman, Craig Rohner, about a machine. We immediately struck a deal. It has performed flawlessly,” concluded Kus.
Kustom Construction is a small family owned and operated company. They do approximately five or six million dollars worth of work a year. Their primary business is building small to medium sized bridges. Kustom was incorporated in 1979 and began operations a year later. Kustom works primarily in the greater Chicago area, and in most parts of the state of Illinois.
Link-Belt Construction Equipment Company, with headquarters in Lexington, Kentucky, is a leader in the design and manufacture of telescopic boom and lattice boom cranes for the construction industry worldwide.