Keeping It Together W


hile Schwager Davis Inc. (SDI), San Jose, Calif., hasn’t made a lot of the structures you know, it has made a lot of the structures you know possible. Following is a look at a few of its recent projects and the casting suppliers


Allegheny River Bridge


twin Allegheny River Bridges in Pennsyl- vania (to be com- pleted in 2010) will replace a 55-year-old steel truss structure. SDI provided post tensioning systems to assist in erect- ing 2,350-ft. cast- in-place segmental concrete bridges, with main spans of 532 ft.


Casting Suppliers—Urick Foundry Co.* *Headquartered in Eerie, Pa.


Folsom Dam Bypass Bridge The $75 million Folsom


Dam Bypass Bridge ad- dressed safety concerns after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. SDI supplied all materials and installation labor for post- tensioning of the new four- lane, 1,000-ft. segmental concrete bridge that spans the Sacramento River just south of Folsom Dam.


Casting Suppliers—Urick Foundry Co. and Farrar Corp. Bay Bridge Skyway


SDI assisted with the plan-


ning and development of the precast segmental erection scheme for the San Francisco- Oakland Bay Bridge Skyway, then designed and supplied the self-launching erection devices that lifted the 452 concrete segments onto the superstructure and furnished all post-tensioning materials, equipment and technical support for the project. The Skyway contains 6,670 post- tensioning tendons weighing over 23 million lbs. and total- ing 5,529 miles of steel strand.


Casting Suppliers—N.E.W. Castings+ +Headquartered in Spokane, Wash.


34 , Urick Foundry Co. and Farrar Corp. and Farrar Corp.** **Headquartered in Norwich, Kan.


that were used to produce the bearing plates and anchor heads. The $190-million


goes to the supplier with the order when it wins a post tensioning job. Most of the time, the company goes with suppliers it knows, but according to Tumason, it has some purchasing representatives that occasionally bring in new metalcasters. The majority of the cast anchor


heads and bearing plates used by SDI are cast in 80-55-06 ductile iron. In addition to matching the required size envelope, new metalcasting sup- pliers must be proficient at produc- ing ductile iron to that specification. The company does not require x-ray inspection of castings through the life of a product, but certain original contractors (i.e. municipalities or gov- ernment entities) sometimes specify different inspection techniques. The caster must be able to certify each of its casting heats through Brinell test- ing, and testing is performed on first articles to ensure casting soundness. “[They require that] there are records


provided for the life of the project,” Far- rar said. “We try to fix issues upstream in the process—what the part needs to be and whether it fits their design.” Several other proficiencies also can


make a metalcaster a preferred supplier for SDI. Because the company does its assembly remotely on job sites, it looks for casting suppliers that can deliver a complete part that never has to come through its San Jose warehouse. Ac- cording to Tumason, that makes a metalcaster that maintains an in-house machine shop (or that can provide cost- competitive sub-contracted machining) a more desirable option. However, the company does source


some raw castings, as well. N.E.W. Castings, a division of Travis Pattern and Foundry, Spokane, Wash., has supplied the company base plates in the unfinished and un-galvanized form. “We have machining capabilities,


but on the Bay Bridge Skyway proj- ect, we just provided them with the raw castings,” said Carl Beach, the company’s manager. SDI also prefers to deal with compa-


nies that employ modeling and solidifi- cation software to ensure their castings will be sound prior to the first pour. “They are interested in making the


project work with whatever entity they are dealing with,” Farrar said. “Guido and his son [Vice President] Mike Schwager have done a lot of design work over the years.”


MODERN CASTING / February 2010


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