Hurricane Sandy Repairs for Electrical Substation

SJH provided structural design, engineering and construction assistance services for the $200 million repair, reconstruction and replacement of electrical substations and related equipment at Hoboken, MMC and Bay Head rail yards for New Jersey Transit. In collaboration with Gannett Fleming, SJH provided assessments, evaluation, calculations and design for bridges, stations including HVAC/mechanical/plumbing components.

New Substation Building at Bay Head: After the initial site visit, in order to meet the new flood elevation, SJH proposed that the new substation building be elevated above grade and supported by cost effective steel or concrete piles. Flood walls were designed to protect the lower levels of the building to from floods. Also developed the design for grading around the site for drainage away from the building.

SJH Current Building Structural Revised Henderson Substation Building: SJH considered two options: retaining the existing building and raising the equipment, or demolishing the existing building, installing a new slab at the required elevation and providing a new modular or tilt up building. Based on this analysis, it was decided to install new floor slab to support the electrical equipment live load of 250 psf. The existing steel columns were confirmed to be adequate to support the heavy load.

Pullman and Immigration Building: SJH proposed strengthening the floor and steel framing to support heavier loads. To reduce the dead load on the steel framing, we considered removing the concrete encasement or strengthen it by welding additional plates on the steel beams. We prepared demolition plans, steel strengthening details, and designs for the installation of new floors. The existing foundations consisting of timber pile clusters were strengthened with fiber wrapping and placement of rip rap around them to protect the pile clusters from rising waters.