Location: Fort Worth, Texas
IH-35W is the main arterial running north and south through Fort Worth. This expansion extended from IH-30 in the south up to IH-820 in the north; widening IH-35W to include managed lanes and constructing new bridges across the entire project. This project was a design-build project so the contract value has varied over time, but at the time of writing this the total for drilling operations has exceeded $10 million. North Tarrant Infrastructure (NTI), the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the City of Fort Worth have been implementing expansion for large segments of IH-35W and continue to do so further north of IH-820.
Our portion of this project included working with several different rail road contractors due to the intersection of main rail lines with IH-35W. Due to the vast nature of this project the geologic conditions vary greatly in some areas compared to others. This project was an excellent demonstration for most typical drilling methods due to multiple differences from location to location. In some areas permanent casing was required, in other areas underwater placement was required, and some areas required rock coring for undrillable materials. The project ranged in size from 18” up to 84” with depths from 11’ to 100’. At several times, there were 5 or more drilling rigs spread across this project with potentially different drilling situations for each crew.