Location
Chicago, Illinois
Date
02 May 2013, 11:50 am - 12:10 am
Abstract
Chicago can be called the birthplace of the Skyscraper, and also tlle Drilled Shaft Foundation, both of which came into being late in the 19th century. The story of the Chicago Caisson begins with the presence of a thick deposit of soft clay beneath the City, and continues with the succession of building booms that have characterized the growth of the City over the last 140 years, beginning just after the Great Fire of 187 1. During that first boom, new tall structures were built so rapidly, and amid such profound geotechnical uncertainty, that the process of designing a successful foundation became one of trial and error, with very little time between projects to observe behavior and make corrections. Eventually attempts to " float" tall buildings on shallow foundations above the soft clay were abandoned in favor oftl,e first deep foundations, which bypassed the problem layer and found solid support on "hardpan" till or rock below. This paper will briefly describe the origin of the modem Drilled Shaft Foundation, which has its evolutionary roots in the Chicago Hand-Dug Caisson. It will then trace the development of the Chicago Caisson into a mechanized process, with each advance assisted again by observed behavior, emerging load test methods, and constant improvement and innovation in equipment and methods to meet the needs of the next generation of taller buildings.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
7th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2013 Missouri University of Science and Technology, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Schock, Robert E. and Risberg, Eric J., "120 Years of Caisson Foundations in Chicago" (2013). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 6.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/7icchge/session10/6
120 Years of Caisson Foundations in Chicago
Chicago, Illinois
Chicago can be called the birthplace of the Skyscraper, and also tlle Drilled Shaft Foundation, both of which came into being late in the 19th century. The story of the Chicago Caisson begins with the presence of a thick deposit of soft clay beneath the City, and continues with the succession of building booms that have characterized the growth of the City over the last 140 years, beginning just after the Great Fire of 187 1. During that first boom, new tall structures were built so rapidly, and amid such profound geotechnical uncertainty, that the process of designing a successful foundation became one of trial and error, with very little time between projects to observe behavior and make corrections. Eventually attempts to " float" tall buildings on shallow foundations above the soft clay were abandoned in favor oftl,e first deep foundations, which bypassed the problem layer and found solid support on "hardpan" till or rock below. This paper will briefly describe the origin of the modem Drilled Shaft Foundation, which has its evolutionary roots in the Chicago Hand-Dug Caisson. It will then trace the development of the Chicago Caisson into a mechanized process, with each advance assisted again by observed behavior, emerging load test methods, and constant improvement and innovation in equipment and methods to meet the needs of the next generation of taller buildings.
