This project is part of Harrison, New Jersey’s redevelopment plan and consists of a new seven-story parking garage surrounded by mid-rise residential buildings located on Frank E. Rodgers Boulevard. BSG performed an analysis at the request of the Pegasus Group to determine what effects, if any, that the pile driving operation would have on the adjacent Amtrak Railroad property, when a concern was raised by Amtrak. Specifically, our analysis estimated the vibration levels that could be realized. In order to accomplish this, we utilized the Plaxis 2D Version 8 software program to determine the magnitude of the vibrations that may be induced during pile driving, modeling the subsurface conditions from the information we obtained from our subsurface investigation. Plaxis is a finite element program where soil models are used to simulate the soil behavior, and was specifically developed for the analysis of deformation and stability in geotechnical engineering projects.
Based on the results of our analysis, we concluded that there would be negligible affects on the adjacent property, which was accepted by Amtrak provided that a vibration monitoring program is implemented to confirm the results of the analysis. BSG is currently monitoring the vibrations that are being generated by the pile driving efforts, and thus far, the monitoring program results are consistent with our analysis predictions.