North Dakota Wind Farm

 SCE provided construction observation and material testing for 75 energy-powered windmills.  The windmills were spread across 33,600 acres of land. SCE performed compaction testing on the area for the temporary concrete plant, all roadways throughout the site, and all underground utility backfilling in accordance with the specifications of the project. Concrete testing was performed on all windmill foundation bases and pedestals.  Per specification, each concrete truck needed to be tested for slump, air, temperature, and strength for all pours.  Each foundation required approximately 500 cubic yards of concrete totaling the preparation of approximately 80 concrete test cylinders per foundation pour.  

A certified laboratory was created and brought to the site where all soil and concrete tests required for the project were performed.  At most, SCE had six employees, technicians, inspectors, laboratory technicians and project managers, on-site performing compaction tests, concrete testing, laboratory tests and management.  Organization was extremely important to make sure all required inspections and testing were covered on a daily basis and inspectors and technicians were present for each pour. All cylinders were picked up and brought back to the onsite laboratory in the required 24-hour time frame and all cylinders were organized in the concrete lab and broken at the designated times.  Timing was critical to make sure all testing, pickups, and breaks were completed in each workday and that test results were provide on time to not delay the project.  

A very tight timeline was applied to this project, so the project ran 12-hour days, 7 days a week from July 2014 to December 2014 when the freezing weather required work to be stopped.  All office project management was performed in our office in Virginia coordinating with our field project managers in North Dakota on a daily basis to confirm the field work was running properly and all paperwork and daily updates were being sent to the proper team members.  Communication was key to keeping the rigorous daily testing scheduled and required reports completed each day.