City: Newark
State: Delaware
Owner:  University of Delaware
General Contractor:  Corrado Construction Company

Building X Project Background

In 2022, the University of Delaware announced the construction of a new $165 million science facility that will serve as a research and teaching hub for the College of Arts and Sciences. This facility will replace McKinley Lab which was critically damaged by fire in 2017 and eventually demolished in 2022. The new facility, which was temporarily named Building X during construction, is set to open its doors to students in 2024.

Temporary Excavation Support System Provided by Schnabel

In April of 2022, Corrado Construction Company, the site general contractor for the Building X project at the University of Delaware contracted Schnabel to provide a temporary excavation support system to facilitate the construction of the new 131,000-square-foot science facility. Schnabel chose to build a shoring system using soldier piles, lagging, and tiebacks utilizing hollow-core bars. During the project, Schnabel installed 90 soldier piles, 124,500 SF of lagging, and 71 tiebacks.

Quality Control

The hollow core bars tiebacks installed on this project were subject to rigorous quality control that included numerous proof tests by Schnabel’s field team. The drilling rates, the volume of grout used, the specific gravity of the grout, and more were tracked in real time during the duration of the project. Tieback testing was completed without any failures.

Conclusion

In July of 2022, Schnabel successfully installed the excavation support system to facilitate the construction of a new state-of-the-art science facility at the University of Delaware. Schnabel was able to complete the project on the client’s schedule and budget with no safety incidents. Thank you to everyone involved in this project!