If there was a working template in place, it wasn't for very long. The Kentucky Lake Bridge project was saturated in highly complex challenges, and perhaps the highest-ranked one involved setting 330,000-lb piles in place. The process involved a template that was floated into place and used to guide the piles, which were up to 199 ft long, 6 ft in diam. and came with 2-in.-thick steel walls, into place. Using an upper and lower template, a hydraulic gate would open up, the pile was swung into position, the gate was closed and the pile, equipped with constrictor plates, was hammered down to resistance. There were over 9,200 kips of resistance in each pile, and some are positioned over 100 ft deep.
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