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By Anne Lemnitzer

Full-Scale cyclic field testing was performed on a 3x3 pile group consisting of nine cast-in-drilled-hole (CIDH) reinforced concrete shafts and a comparable single-shaft in order to investigate group interaction effects, derive p-y curves for reinforced concrete fixed head piles and to validate currently available p-multiplier models. The piles are identical in diameter of d=2 ft and were tested in similar soil conditions. The single pile as well as in three piles within the pile group were instrumented with internal sensor instrumentation to record pile curvatures. External instrumentation was used to control and measure the lateral displacement of the specimens. Experimental studies were supported with analytical models to enable comparisons and offer design recommendations. All test specimens were tested to structural failure and group interaction factors ranged between 0.8 at small displacement levels and increased towards unit near structural failure. A set of p-multipliers was found to reproduce an accurate fit to the available test data.

Jan 1, 2010

By Mehih Demirkan, Kevin Tehansky

Located about an hour drive south from Washington, D.C., the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) contracted with Skanska-Corman-McLean (SCM) to deliver a new Governor Harry W. Nice Memorial/Senator Thomas "Mac" Middleton Bridge, which takes U.S. 301 over the Potomac River, spanning 1.9 mi (3 km) from Maryland to Virginia. The new bridge aimed to improve capacity, safety and access of the roadway and was planned as a four-lane span with deep foundations that would be constructed fewer than 150 ft (45 m) north of the existing alignment of the more than 80-year-old bridge. The new Harry Nice Bridge opened in the fall of 2022 with a design life of more than 100 years, servicing 12 ft (4 m) wide lanes with 2 ft (0.6m) shoulders, doubling capacity, enhancing emergency response, upgrading maintenance and inspection activity access, and featuring lane sharing for cyclists.

Apr 1, 2023

By Rodrigue Karam

An assessment of the geotechnical conditions at the Manhattan Cruise Terminals (Piers 88, 90, 92 & 94) was conducted after excessive settlement and structural distress was reported at Pier 92. The piers are located on the Hudson River along the west side of Manhattan, New York. The following paper focuses on the investigation and analysis performed on Pier 88 located at the western terminus of 48th Street. The pier is supported by approximately 2,500 timber piles bearing on soft organic silts and clays. The first portion of the analysis consisted of an offshore field investigation and laboratory testing to classify the subsurface soils within the project area and estimate the geotechnical capacities of the timber piles. Additionally, a settlement analysis including consolidation and negative skin friction analyses was performed to evaluate existing settlement levels. Axial and lateral analyses were performed to develop the soil springs (p-y, t-z, and q-z curves) necessary for the structural analysis.

By Hyunsuk Yoon, Kiho Lee, Juhyng Lee, Younghoon Jung, Junboum Park

"The environmental double pile method is presented as a device to improve the engineering properties and to clean up contamination of low-permeability soil. This method is one of the novel technologies based on the concept of one step process. It can be applied to low permeable contaminated ground for site reuse. It uses piles to improve drainage, contaminant remediation, and bearing capacity of the ground. To evaluate the on-site applicability of this technology, drainage and strength properties of the environmental double pile were assessed by a series of experiments and numerical analysis. Environmental double pile was found to be a feasible alternative method to improve contaminated soft ground.Korea is a peninsula with many coastal industrial zones. These zones are located in regions mostly underlain by soft ground with low permeability and adjacent to industrial areas that can be contaminated. Therefore, a new region-specific remediation method is required to achieve environmentally sustainable development. This research introduces the Environmental Double Pile (hereinafter, refer to as EDP) for the lowpermeability contaminated ground and focused on both contaminant remediation and soft ground improvement. Basically, the EDP is quite similar to sand compaction pile (SCP). The SCP has been studied extensively to improve soft ground (Braja 1999; Hansbo 1994; Madhav and others 1978; Taylor 1948). But unlike SCP, EDP is filled with oyster shells instead of sand and an inner pile is inserted in the center of this oyster shell filled-zone. Therefore, it is a double pile consisting of the oyster shell pile and the inner pile, as depicted in Fig. 1."

Jan 1, 2005

By Joseph T. Coe, Siavash Mahvelati, Philip Asabere

Characterization of existing foundations remains an important issue as foundation reuse and rehabilitation continue to garner increased attention. In the case of unknown foundations, geophysical and nondestructive testing (NDT) methods have been utilized in the past to evaluate foundation geometry and could serve as useful tools in the case of foundation reuse. A comprehensive study was initiated in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s that evaluated the effectiveness of the available geophysical and NDT technologies to characterize unknown foundations for scour evaluation purposes. At the time of that study, the Multichannel Analysis of Surface Waves (MASW) geophysical method was in its infancy and not widely used. Since then, MASW has become increasingly prevalent in geotechnical applications as the method presents a number of potential advantages when characterizing the subsurface, including rapid testing, increased signal to noise ratio, and ability to resolve velocity inversions. This paper presents a case study that explores the abilities of MASW as an unknown foundation characterization tool. MASW was applied to determine subsurface stiffness at a bridge foundation site in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. One MASW survey line was performed immediately over the foundation of interest and another was performed over a control zone adjacent to the foundation to establish a baseline site profile. The purpose of this testing was to examine whether MASW could establish the geometry of the foundation at this site. This paper presents the site conditions and MASW testing procedures, followed by a discussion of data analysis and interpretation.

Jan 1, 2016

By John Erikson, Alan J. Lutenegger, Nicholas Williams

"In order to evaluate the level of disturbance produced in clays during installation, a series of single-helix and multi-helix anchors were installed at a test site consisting of a stiff overconsolidated clay crust overlying softer near normally consolidated clay. Field vane tests were then conducted over the top of the helical plates at various depths to determine the undrained shear strength after installation and were compared with undrained shear strength measured in adjacent undisturbed ground. The tests represent the first time that the degree of installation disturbance has been evaluated directly and show that even with perfect installation practice the clay is disturbed as a result of rotation of the helices during installation. The results show that the soil is not completely remolded but that the strength is below the peak undrained strength of the adjacent undisturbed ground. Measurement of the installation torque and the rate of advance are used to define an “Installation Disturbance Factor” which may help to evaluate the quality of the installation by the Contractor and degree of soil disturbance. INTRODUCTIONAn important consideration in the design of Helical Anchors is the degree of disturbance to the soil during installation. This may be especially important for saturated fine-grained soils where the disturbance from installation may produce a reduction of the undrained shear strength. Even though this was recognized as early as 1950 by Skempton, soil disturbance is often ignored by engineers using current design procedures. Field investigations were performed to obtain both directs and indirect evaluation of the degree of disturbance produced by the installation of single-helix and multi-helix anchors in clay and the influence of disturbance on behavior. The investigations involved measurement of torque and advance during installation, load tests performed to determine load-displacement behavior and ultimate capacity and field vane tests performed over the helical anchors to evaluate changes in undrained shear strength as compared to adjacent undisturbed ground. The characteristics of the site and details of the installation are presented. Results of the field vane tests are shown for a number of helical anchor installations and results of load tests are presented. The results indicate that a reduction should be made to the undisturbed undrained shear strength for design and that the reduction may be related to the Sensitivity of the clay and quality of installation."

Jan 1, 2017

By Morgan NeSmith

The Port of Palm Beach is a full-service landlord port in Riviera Beach, Florida. The port and its tenants process more than $14 billion in commodities. About 80% of these are exports, which makes the Port of Palm Beach one of only 16 "Export Ports" in the U.S. More than 2.5 million tons of cargo move through the port every year. Ozinga, a fourth-generation family- owned construction materials company, has supplied ready-mix concrete for commercial, residential, public works, landscaping and excavation projects from several of its Florida locations. It planned to build a one-of-a-kind cement storage facility to receive and store international ship- ments of cement for transport to other facilities for the production of ready- mix concrete. Dome Technology, of Idaho Falls, Idaho, designed and constructed the 125 ft (38 m) diameter storage facility. The design and working volume of cement for the facility was just under 27,000 cu ft (765 m3). The design loads required to be supported by the foundation system are shown in this table:

Apr 1, 2023

By William M. Camp

Construction-induced earthborn vibrations have long been recognized as a potential problem with respect to the constructed environment and various vibration criteria are in use to prevent damage. A special case of construction vibration control is the protection of early-age or ?green? concrete. Unlike limits for damage prevention to building stock, there is no rational, widely accepted limit for protection of early-age concrete. Numerous criteria have been proposed or reported in the literature and the most relevant and rational proposals are summarized herein. These findings are applied to a case history involving both bored and driven piles. Vibration measurements were made during pile driving activities and the vibration magnitude was evaluated with respect to the exposure of freshly-placed and curing concrete to the earthborn vibrations. The maximum vibration magnitude at the applicable distances from pile driving was on the order of 0.3 inches per second. Based on the most persuasive literature, threshold values of 0.8 inches per second or even 1 to 2 inches per second for the protection of green concrete appear to be well-supported. Consequently, it was concluded that the pile driving activities and bored pile construction could proceed simultaneously.

Jan 1, 2010

By Don C. Warrington

This paper describes a new wave equation analysis program called ZWAVE, which is a program specifically for external combustion hammers. The program is de-scribed in detail, the discussion dealing with topics concerning the program such as 1) the numerical method the program uses to integrate the wave equation, which is different from most other wave equation programs; 2) the modelling process of both cushioned and cushionless hammers; 3) the automated generation of mass and spring values for both hammer and pile; 4) the method of dealing with plastic cushions; 5) the use of a recently developed model for computing shaft resistance during driving; 6) the computation and generation of values based on basic soil properties such as shear modulus, Poisson's Ratio and soil density; 7) the completely interactive method of feeding data to the program; 8) the method used to compute the anticipated rebound and the energy used to plastically deform the soil; and 9) the format of the inter-active input of the program and the program's output. Sample problems for the program, along with comparison of the program results with data gathered in the field, are presented.

Jan 1, 1988

By William Auyeung

Micro-piles are small-diameter, drilled and grouted reinforced piles used for both structural support and in situ earth reinforcement. They were conceived in Italy in 1952, but have become popular in Canada and the United State only since the mid-1980s. The Province of British Columbia completed a construction of a 265-km (165 miles) four-lane highway between Campbell River and Victoria in the year of 2000. The construction of Big Qualicum Bridge was part of the above mentioned provincial government project and this bridge was made of twin cast-in-place concrete parabolic arch structures. The overall length of the bridge is 261 metres (856 feet) and the width is 24.2 metres (80 feet). The massive thrust from each arch is resisted by groups of 46 drilled micro-piles that are about 230 mm (9 inches) in diameter with No. 18 high strength Dywidag threaded bars with double corrosion protection up to 15 metres (50 feet) long. This paper will describe the micro-pile design and installation methods. The performance of the micro-piles in full scale testing in tension and compression monitored with electronic strain gauges will be presented. The impact of drilling methods on the performance of the micro-piles will also be discussed.

Jan 1, 2004

By R. A. Fraser

Large diameter (1.0 to 2.5m) bored piles have been widely used to support buildings and elevated roadways in Hong Kong. Most of these piles are founded on a hard bearing stratum such as granitic or volcanic bedrock, in the newly reclaimed areas along the water-front, the bedrock stratum can be as deep as 70-80 metres below ground surface, and construction of bored piles to bedrock in this case is difficult and unjustified. Nevertheless, Building Ordinance Regulations in Hong Kong require piles to be founded on bedrock. To overcome this problem for elevated roadways, trial piles have been designed founded on dense, completely decomposed granite. A number of piles have been constructed and subsequently load-tested to allow the rate of mobilisation of skin friction to be measured. This paper outlines the design, construction and testing method, and comments on the test results from several trial piles. GEOLOCICAL CONDITIONS The geology of Hong Kong consists predominantly of acid volcanic rocks intruded by granite. The granite has been deeply weathered, and variations in sea level have produced a drowned coastline with sequences of alluvial, colluvial and marine deposits overlying the weathered bedrock. Reclamation has extended this coastline. Typical site conditions are described later in the paper.

Jan 1, 2010

By Pirooz Barar

The new Stanley Hall building will house the center for bio-engineering and technology research for the UC Berkeley campus. The structure is located at the northeast part of campus, adjacent to Donner Lab, on the west side of Galey Road, approximately 600 ft. from the Hayward Fault. The building site has a complex geological formation. To the east there are clayey soil shale formations, and to the west there is greywake shattered sandstone. The water table is at 10 ft. below grade. The structure will consist of 6 levels below grade and 8 levels above grade, which calls for an 83 ft. deep excavation on the northeast side. There is an approximately 35 ft. grade differential between the east and west sides of the building. Because of this severe grade differential, as well as high water tables, the lateral forces on the building due to uneven earth pressures would have been 2 times the magnitude of the seismic forces. To mitigate the lateral earth pressures, a permanent Soil Nailed Wall, integrated with the structural system of the building was designed. PB&A, Inc.?s in-house design program ?Winslope? was utilized to design the system and the data obtained from a rigorous monitoring program, were used to calibrate several computer runs using Plaxis program.

Jan 1, 2004

By Naim Noori Samie

Lateral force rsistance of piles is analytically investigated by dividing the pile length to 3 segments. The first segment (Zone I) models the load eccentricity with respect to the soil and the pile-deck connection, using a third degree differential equation representing the shear variation along the pile. The soil is assumed to be uniform, homogeneous with an elastic-perfectly plastic behavior. The Top soil layer (Zone II) is assumed to be stressed beyond the elastic limit. A simple 4th degree differential equation represents this zone. The soil resistance is assumed to vary linearly with depth (or surcharge). The pile deformation and soil behavior determines the plastic zone length. In zone III the soil is assumed to behave elastically, hence its resistance is proportional to its deformation. A linear 4th degree differential equation is employed in this zone. The compatibility conditions are satisfied on each boundary. Maximum allowable moment and shear are investigated throughout the pile as the basic limiting criteria on lateral force capacity. In this paper the soil coefficients are taken from a proposal by ref(3), and the results are compared with the soil response as determined by the P-Y method as recommended by ref(2).

Jan 1, 1996

By Stephan Fisch, Franz-Werner Gerressen

"The use of cut-off-walls (COW) for the open pit coal mines has been used for decades. They have been used to reduce the negative hydraulic impact to the surrounding area caused by the open pit mining. The pile-guided trench cutting system is a worldwide unique technique, originally developed by the engineers of the mining companies themselves. It guarantees a continuous, joint free, COW during a continuous installation process. At this specific site in Welzow, this technique has been pushed to new limits in order to address the local lake region. Depth capability has been designed to about 430 ft (130m), proven are already depth of about 360 ft (110m) at a constant trench width of 39 inch (1000 mm). This project is approximately. 6.8 miles (11 km) long of COW, scheduled to be completed in 12 years period. About 2.05 miles (3.3km) have been installed, which is equivalent of about 3.5 Million ft² (330,000 m²). The system flushes special clay which forms a filter crust at the inner surface of the trench. Only natural clay resources used, in order to achieve the cut-off effect (colmation effect). The paper explains the installation process of the cut-off-wall as well as the equipment systems developed specifically for this project. After a successful start of the first phase of the project, the next step in the advancement of the equipment is already underway to enable the installation of greater depth to approximately 490 ft (150 m +) and beyond. The next generation equipment system is scheduled to start operation around 2018 INTRODUCTIONThis Serbian saying “Bóh je stworil Lužicu a cert je zaryl brunicu – God created Lusatia and the devil buried brown coal underneath it.” captures local communities’ ambivalence towards lignite.Lusatia is an almost entirely flat stretch of land between the Elbe and Neiße rivers dominated by glacial sands. On the surface, the heathland and woodland is hardly noteworthy. However, three large lignite mining regions, two in Brandenburg and one in Saxony, in the east part of Germany, divert the attention to underground level, down to depths of up to 120 meters. Here, seams crisscross the earth like ribbons. They were formed in the Tertiary around 17 million years ago.The mining of the lignite started almost 200 years ago. To enable open pit mining, a suitable dewatering system was required. At first, wells and drainage system were used. With the increasing demand to go deeper to enable full use of the existing resources with greater mining depth, a decision taken back in the 60th of the last century, the amount of water which had to be pumped increased dramatically. In peak times, approx. 1.57 Billion cubic yards per year (1.2 Billion m³/year) had to be pumped. This led to a lowering of the groundwater level for up to 230 ft (70 m), impacting the regional lake landscape. In order to reduce the influence on the water balance, and bring the water level back to pre1970th, a first development took place to implement the use of specific COW system to depth of about 147 ft (45m)."

Jan 1, 2017

By Bryan C. Field

The proposed construction schedule for the St. Anthony Falls I-35W Bride challenged the abilities of the design-build teams to utilize the best and most efficient methods to meet Minnesota Department of Transportation?s deadlines and design requirements to restore traffic to the Interstate 35W crossing of the Mississippi River, along with a sense of normalcy, following the bridge collapse. The project team ultimately designed and constructed two foundation systems at various substructures for bridge support. Steel H-section piles were driven to bedrock for south bridge abutment support and drilled shafts were used for the north bridge abutment and piers for the Mississippi River Bridge. Drilled shafts we also used for the abutments for the three single span bridges carrying I-35W over 2nd Street. The design-build team used high-strain dynamic pile testing with a Pile Driving Analyzer (PDA) to verify H-Pile capacities and performed drilled shaft inspection on a 24-hour basis during installation over the winter months. The drilled shaft inspection process was a vital part of the project quality control program to maintain the necessary methods for proper drilled shaft installation. Ultimately, with an efficient design, quality construction methods and operation, and a rigorous inspection and quality control plan; the I-35W Bridge was opened to traffic 3 months ahead of the already accelerated schedule.

Jan 1, 2009

By Grischa Dette, Thomas Schröder, Holger Merski

For the construction of the tunnel for the new Berlin S21 light rail line, a construction pit had to be built below the crossing B 96 federal road. For this purpose, the construction pit M’ has been built beforehand as a preliminary structure for the later S21 Berlin. A crucial element of this structure is a 2.50 m deep reinforced concrete deck slab which carries the B 96. During the later construction of the S21, it became clear that the existing preliminary structure could not be used without major modifications. Consequently, the construction pit design was gradually upgraded – still with the aim of retaining the basic concept of a trough structure with a jet-grouting cut-off. As construction progressed, for reasons of stability it became necessary to develop a fundamentally new concept with an underwater concrete base replacing the jet-grouting cutoff. This paper describes the planning and construction of a cut-and-cover structure with an underwater concrete base – a layout that brings with it the difficult task of underwater excavation and concrete placing without direct accessibility from above. Special emphasis is placed on describing the innovative approaches in connection with a remotely controlled underwater dredger from the Norwegian offshore industry for excavation works. Furthermore, the sophisticated underwater technologies for concrete placing in the confined surroundings are described.

May 1, 2022

By Gordon King

This paper presents a case study of large diameter continuous flight auger (CFA) piles and drilled shafts utilized for foundation support of a series of heavily loaded cement plant structures at the Suwannee American Cement (SAC) Plant in Branford, Florida. The high loads and exacting total and differential settlement criteria when combined with a highly variable subsurface geology provided a challenging design scenario. Fully instrumented static pile load tests were performed to determine design parameters in the variable weathered limestone bedrock. Ultimate side friction values ranged from 2 to 8 tsf within the limestone, resulting in the requirement for CFA piles up to one meter (approximately 40 inches) in diameter and socket lengths of up to 40 feet. At several localized areas, the limestone bedrock was in excess of 60 feet below grade, requiring the use of cased drilled shafts to depths on the order of 80 to 90 feet. An integral part of the production pile installation was the use of instrumentation to monitor drilling and concreting parameters. Calibration of drill rates, torque and auger rotation with rock quality was performed to allow monitoring of the soil stratigraphy at each pile location. When combined with the results of the instrumented load testing, the monitoring of drilling parameters allowed confirmation that sufficient socket length was achieved within the quality of rock present at each and every pile location.

Jan 1, 2003

By Brian Littlechild

Whilst there is much innovative work being undertaken in South East Asia in the space allowed in this paper we have settled on describing in more detail the work that has been done with shaft grouting of deep foundations and piles founded in rock both in end bearing and socket friction. The paper is necessarily in two parts. The first part is about the application of shaft grouting since its introduction to the region some eight years ago. It describes, for the first time, much of the detail of the different techniques used and the construction and the design benefits achieved with shaft grouting in five countries in the region. The second part outlines the enhancements achieved in the design of piles founded in rock and brings together the results of 10 years of test loading. This includes the load testing of 1.2m to 1.5m diameter piles to a maximum of 30MN on granite and a recent programme of tests on a wide range of strong rock types in Hong Kong. The ground conditions for these deep foundations vary widely, from sedimentary soils to in situ weathered granite and meta-sedimentary rocks. The construction techniques include barrettes constructed using mill techniques and bored piles formed under bentonite and water using both oscillators and rotators.

Jan 1, 2000

By Fawad S. Niazi

Analysis of deep foundations in terms of axial capacity has been a topic of great interest in the soil-structure interaction problems. Soil behavior is governed by a series of complex stress-strain changes that occur during pile installation and subsequent loading. Owing to the difficulties and uncertainties on the basis of the soil strength-deformation characteristics, one of the most frequently followed design practice is to refer to the formulae correlating directly the pile axial capacity components of unit base resistance (qb) and unit shaft resistance (fp) to the data collected from cone penetration test (CPT), i.e. to the tip stress (qc or more proper qt), sleeve friction (fs), and shoulder pore water pressure (u2). The elementary basis for such formulations has been the idea of considering cone penetrometer as a mini-pile foundation. This has resulted in plethora of correlative relationships in the past over 60 years. Such correlations, although empirical, have been worked out on the basis of load test results from both instrumented and un-instrumented full scale piles and are able to accommodate many important variables. A quick review of the evolution process and development of such design formulations is presented with a view to propose recommendations for future research directions, where the latest version of CPT i.e. seismic piezocone test (SCPTu) can be used to advance from capacitysingularity to the complete axial pile load–displacement (Q–w) response.

Jan 1, 2013

By Ramdane Bahar

The new Algiers airport building is a reinforced concrete building of more than 80 thousand square meters of floor slabs. It is located at Dar-EI-Beida, near the old passenger terminal, about 20 km east of Algiers. The project is designed to receive about six millions passengers annually and leaves the possibility of future extension. Due to the presence of a top layer of compressible soil and great concentrated loads transmitted to the foundations, the building is to be founded on 1730 bored piles of 1.2 meter diameter varying in length between 14 and 28 m. Construction work started in 1986 and was interrupted in 1996 due to financial difficulties when the structure was almost complete. The structure was left unattended for more than three years without any weatherproofing and in 1999 a new firm was appointed to complete the work and hence an evaluation of the existing structure was necessary. This paper describes and discusses the foundation design, construction supervision, site quality control and assessment by the parallel seismic method of the deep foundations built in cohesive soils. The variation in soil conditions and identified geotechnical and hydrogeological problems associated with the development of the area, required a thorough knowledge of the soil conditions. A variety of tests, involving more than 200 locations, were carried out. The ground investigation, pile tests as well as different problems encountered during piles construction, are presented.

Jan 1, 2002