Headed by Louisa Tropeano-Tanner, President; and her daughter, Dailyn Sullivan, Senior Vice President, the Woman Business Enterprise won the job with a bid of $2,228,858 to replace the 60-year-old Lubbers Brook Culvert on Middlesex Avenue (Route 62) and reconstruct about 10,000 square feet of roadway.
Tropeano’s director for the Wilmington roadway/culvert project is Tom Maimone, while his father, 30-year construction veteran Al Maimone, is the project superintendent. Father and son have worked together on several large and complicated projects.
According to Tom Maimone, the new single arch structure is replacing two rotting corrugated steel plate pipes. Designed to handle a 25-year flood frequency, the three-sided box structure is a Contech Engineered Solutions ALBC 84 Aluminum Arch Culvert. Tom Hennessey, bridge consultant, represents the culvert supplier.
Unlike most culverts, which cross roadways at a right angle, this one has an unusual skew of about 53 degrees to the culvert headwalls at each end. “The culvert span is only about 25 feet; however, the skew and existing utilities make the span along the centerline closer to 60 feet,” said Maimone.
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Before the temporary support system for this ductbank could be constructed, Tropeano had to provide such relevant documents as design plans, calculations, details, shop drawings, and erection details, to the town’s engineering consultant, TEC Inc., for review and approval. The design of the temporary utility support structure had to be prepared and stamped by a Professional Engineer registered in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Tropeano hired R.S. Audley Inc. to design and build the ductbank support. Dave Gifford, P.E. with Audley, designed a temporary 135-foot ductbank support. This was made up of a strongback beam comprised of two stacked HP12x53 girders supported on two bents. The bents in turn consisted of two vertical HP12x53 piles and a horizontal HP12x53 pilecap welded to the top of the two piles.
Audley used an H&M 3000 vibratory driver to install the piles about 15 feet deep. The existing concrete-encased ductbank is suspended beneath the strongback by ratchet truck straps placed 18 inches center-to-center. Each strap has a working load capacity of more than 2000 pounds.
To lower groundwater, workers set up four 3-inch submersible pumps that discharged to two open-top weir tanks for settling out solids prior to discharging into a temporary swale. The swale was meant to lower the velocity of the water as it was reintroduced to the brook. According to Tropeano, groundwater was exceptionally high in September, which caused pumps to be running 24/7.
The project required a Wetland Specialist to document compliance with the applicable permits. Jennifer Letourneau of J. Kehoe Consulting, LLC was selected for this role.
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Tropeano self-performed site earthmoving using a fleet of Volvo excavators, loaders and off-highway trucks to remove some 3000 cubic yards of material. This included unsuitable material beneath the culvert footings that required a 24-inch over-excavation and replacement with crushed stone.
The Town took this opportunity to have force main and gravity sewer lines installed beneath the proposed culvert footings - a place where no sewer infrastructure had ever existed, adding system capacity for future use. In addition, one 12-inch water line that ran over the existing culvert was temporarily cut and capped by the contractor to allow construction to proceed. The water line is to be placed on a permanent galvanized-steel utility support situated outboard of the culvert on the downstream headwall.
There was also an 8-inch gas line running over the existing culvert which had to be temporarily cut and capped, this time by NGRID personnel. The gas line was installed outboard of the culvert on a support mounted to the face of the upstream headwall.
“The culvert footings were constructed using Contech Engineered Solutions’ Express Foundations, which are essentially stay-in-place galvanized steel forms with most of the steel reinforcement already installed,” said Maimone. “This allows us to set the form on the prepared subgrade, block up the keyway, tie a minor amount of steel, and place concrete.
“Not having to form footings in the foundation saved us a significant amount of time,” he said.
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Maimone said Boston Concrete is the concrete vendor for the project. He pointed out that the 4,000- and 5,000 PSI MassDOT Cement Concrete routinely reached 150 percent of the design strength within 28 days. Rebars & Mesh provided approximately 15 tons of epoxy Coated Steel Reinforcement.
“The initial intent of our bid was to have Route 62 open prior to Wilmington Public School opening date of August 31, 2022,” Maimone said.
“This deadline was met. And much of the credit goes to the cooperation we experienced with town officials, their consultants, MassDOT, subcontractors, and materials and equipment suppliers, that made this challenging project a remarkable success.”
- Bitcon Corporation (paving)
- Premier Fence (furnish/install bridge rail and guardrail)
- Auciello Iron Works (design/fabricate/permanent utility supports
- Miller Engineering & Testing (quality control testing and inspection)
- White Cap (miscellaneous construction supplies)
- EJ Prescott (pipe and fittings)
- Scituate Concrete Pipe (reinforced concrete pipe)
- Williams Stone (granite curb)