The Job
This work was associated with the conversion the basketball arena at JMU in Harrisonburg, Virginia into a practice and competition facility for other sports.
The Challenge
An area of sloped stadium seating needed to be removed, and the mezzanine level floor extended over the sloped soil, which stayed in place, and onto a new wall at the toe of the slope. To reduce the likelihood of inducing settlement by adding up to 10 feet of backfill over the existing soils, the architect originally designed the backfill material as Expanded Polystyrene. However, given the uneven soil slope, this would have been very challenging to install.
The Solution
Working with the general contractor, architect and geotechnical EOR, CJGeo designed a backfill system that could be installed in fewer than six hours onsite, still provided a significant reduction in load, and cost significantly less than the foam blocks.
CJGeo generated the material onsite using dry batch generation, and placed the material in two lifts in order the limit the lateral loads on the new CMU wall during placement to .9psi.
