Dearborn Engineers & Constructors Inc.( Dearborn) recently teamed up with Ballard Marine Construction and Bay Crane Companies to plan the lifting and placement of special precast concrete pipe that will form the business end of a new freshwater intake for a city in metropolitan Chicago.
The precast-concrete intake pipe will reach about a mile out into Lake Michigan and lie on the lake bed about 50 feet below the water’ s surface.
The outer end of the intake pipe will connect to three huge three-fingered intakes called tridents that will provide a total of nine waterintake openings.
This part of the project staged the tridents and their“ Center Cross T” connecting section on a lakeside lot, then set all the pieces onto the barge that will float them to their installation site.
Ballard is the project’ s prime contractor, Bay Crane Midwest is providing crane services, LGH is supplying rigging components and Dearborn companies provided ground analysis, engineered the rigging and collaborated with Ballard on lift planning.“ It was a total team effort,” said Dearborn CEO Michael Walsh.
Special Pipe Needs Kid-Glove Treatment
Each trident consists of three pipes that connect to each other at one end and spread out like three up-curling fingers.
Each pipe, or finger, is about 5 feet in diameter, nearly 20 feet long and made of precast concrete.
Though this specialty precast concrete is strong, it can crack if over stressed.
The tridents’ sensitivity to stress, their unique shape and the one-year replacement time if one were damaged dictated that every aspect rigging, lifting and handling them had to be meticulously planned and carefully engineered.
“ This job presented some really interesting challenges,”
December 2025 • www. thepartsconnection. org • 9