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By Patrick J. Hannigan, Seth Robertson, Rozbeh B. Moghaddam

The Top-Loaded Bi-Directional Test (―TLBT‖) and the conventional Bi-Directional Load Test (―BDLT‖) are full-scale static load test methods. In both methods, the test loads are applied bi-directionally to the deep foundation. The advantages of the conventional BDLT have been well established for cost efficient static load testing of deep foundations, particularly for large diameter, high-capacity drilled foundations. A conventional BDLT applies the bi-directional test loads using an embedded jack and bearing plates. The TLBT method also applies the bi-directional test load to embedded bearing plates but does so using reusable high-strength threaded bars attached to an above-grade hydraulic jack and load transfer assembly. The new TLBT method is well suited for load testing shafts of a moderate diameter, length, and nominal resistance or ultimate load. TLBT advantages include economic considerations resulting from the method’s reusable load application components and constructability considerations as it readily accommodates a center concrete tremie pipe or pump line location. This paper presents comparison results from full-scale load tests performed using both bi-directional load testing methods. Adjacent 3-foot diameter by 30-foot long BDLT and TLBT shafts were tested. Details regarding subsurface conditions and test shaft construction are included for the comparison of the TLBT and BDLT results. Corresponding test data and analyses for both test shafts are presented and discussed in detail. The BDLT shaft had a maximum uni-directional load of 240 kips at upper and lower bearing plate displacements of 0.5 and -3.8 inches, respectively. The TLBT had a maximum uni-directional load of 300 kips at upper and lower bearing plate displacements of 1.0 and -5.9 inches, respectively. These results as well as the load-transfer behavior and equivalent top loading curve results from the adjacent BDLT and TLBT drilled shafts are discussed. The paper also discusses the strain gage instrumentation on the TLBT load application bars and on the embedded bearing plates.

Oct 1, 2022

Jan 1, 2002

By Pierre Gouvin

This paper describes the design, installation and monitoring of a state of the art real time geotechnical/structural instrumentation monitoring system to facilitate tunnel construction under Interstate route I-5 in Seattle, Washington, USA. The project involved removal of existing highway foundation substructures on both North and Southbound lanes as well as the underground reversible high occupancy vehicle lanes. The system utilized state of the art 3-D pulsed laser scanning, wireless sensor networks, automated robotic total stations, tilt beam sensors, narrow angle tiltmeters, and in-place inclinometers. Dedicated real time data loggers, with a web based graphical interface, provided 24/7 access to critical measurements. In addition to the instrumented sections of wall and roadway subsurface which monitored physical measurements at known points, the pulsed laser scanning allowed complete site monitoring coverage where physical sensors were not located. This data allowed post processing at any location enabling the contractor and designer to respond to unforeseen structural responses to construction. Use of the instrumentation system resulted in the early detection of wall movement, and provided feedback to the designers to facilitate construction process changes in order to minimize further movement.

Jan 1, 2010

By Edmund J. Cardoza

WELCOME TO THE DEEP FOUNDATIONS INSTITUTE 26TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE AND WELCOME ESPECIALLY TO THIS SEMINAR ON NON-DESTRUCTIVE TESTING OF DRILLED SHAFTS, PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF THE DFI DRILLED SHAFT COMMITTEE. MY NAME IS ED CARDOZA; I AM A VICE PRESIDENT WITH THE MILLGARD CORPORATION, A DRILLED SHAFT CONSTRUCTOR FOCUSING PRIMARLY IN THE EASTERN HALF OF THE UNITED STATES.

Jan 1, 2001

By Bengt H. Fellenius

It is a truism that in the design of pile foundations one must consider both capacity and settlement. As to capacity, most basic text books contain simple methods of design of capacity of single pile. More sophisticated methods are the subject of many journal papers. However, methods for design considering settlement of pile foundations are scarce. (Most confuse settlement with the movement due to load-transfer?the transfer of load from the pile to the soil). Furthermore, for both capacity and settlement, most methods include several simplifying assumptions regarding soil layering and neglect the effect of the frequently occurring fill and excavations, as well as changes of the groundwater table and pore pressure distribution. Therefore, the methods may provide qualitative results, but not quantitative. Because of this situation, pile design often appears as somewhat of a guessing game and a very subjective?and risky?occupation. This need not be. Pile foundation design is controlled by three factors: capacity, strength, and settlement requirements and these have been combined in a method called "the unified design of piles and pile groups considering capacity, settlement, and negative skin friction" (Fellenius, 1984; 1989), which method is summarized in this guide.

Jan 1, 1991

By Padmavathi V, M. Najamuddin, M. R. Madhav

Granular piles are one of the leading ground improvement techniques, adopted for the betterment of bearing capacity and reduction in settlements of the foundations and also to accelerate consolidation of the surrounding soil. In the recent past, there has been extensive research on the settlement analysis and behavior of granular piles under varied soil conditions. The application of these theoretical solutions to practical problems requires a knowledge of representative values of the deformation parameters of the ground and the granular piles. However, very little information is available on these parameters. The paper presents a new method for the estimation of the modular ratio of granular piles and modulus of deformation of the surrounding in-situ soil from the compression load tests. The load - settlement response obtained from the compression test results are used in the back analysis for estimating the modulus of deformation of the ground. The presence of granular bed, under the rigid plate for load testing, has been given due consideration in quantifying the proportion of load transferred on to the stone column. Based on these considerations a new method is developed to estimate the modulus of deformation of the ground and the modular ratio of the granular pile.

Sep 1, 2022

Jan 1, 1987

Jan 1, 1989

By Masahiko Yamaki, Takahiro Yamanashi, Hijiri Hashimoto, Hirochika Hayashi

"In this study, the authors used heat conduction analysis with the aim of quantitatively evaluating whether treating improved ground with cover soil is an effective measure for maintaining strength development in the surface layer of improved ground after constructing cement treated soil for the winter season. This report describes a simple procedure to evaluate covering soil thickness, which is necessary for the strength of the surface of cement treated soil, by using the freeze index and both the water content ratio and dry density.INTRODUCTIONIt was reported that when ground improvement using cement is performed in winter in a snowy cold region (Fig. 1 photo, Fig. 2), the uppermost 1 m of the improved ground (i.e., the cement-treated soil) tends to become prone to solidification failure from exposure to the cold air during curing (Hashimoto et al. 2006). In light of this, our research laboratory conducted unconfined compression tests using curing temperature as a parameter of analysis on improved ground toward understanding the influence of curing temperature (ambient air temperature) on the strength improvement afforded by ground improvement.The authors found that if the curing temperature is maintained at 0°C for the first 28 days after improvement and then at 5°C for the next 337 days after improvement, the improved ground is expected to have 90% of the unconfined compressive strength of improved ground whose temperature was maintained at 20°C for the first 365 days after improvement (Hashimoto et al. 2011)."

Jan 1, 2015

By Richard D. Luark, Fernanda S. Madrona

Designing temporary retaining systems that allow for deeper excavation amid the existing urban infrastructure has become a challenge. A 60-foot-deep excavation in downtown Seattle was required to construct five levels of below grade parking for a 35-story high-rise building, Tower 12, next to an existing 20-story tower with three levels of below grade parking, separated from the project by an 18-foot wide alley. The solution was to combine two temporary excavation support systems, soil nailing and anchored soldier piles, to work within the site constraints. Densely-arranged, short-length soil nails were used to support the upper 30 feet of the excavation, while the lower 30 feet of the excavation was supported with soldier piles combined with steeply-inclined, high-capacity ground anchors, which extended below the adjacent building foundations. The combined temporary support system eliminated the need for internal bracing, reducing construction cost and schedule. The performance of the combined soil nail and soldier pile system was monitored with an inclinometer and optical survey monitoring, which demonstrated the performance of the combined temporary support system. This paper provides a discussion of the advantages of combining different excavation systems and an analysis of movement monitoring data collected. SITE CONDITIONS AND PROJECT INFORMATION Tower 12 consists of a 0.45-acre development with 36-stories of mixed, residential and commercial use with four levels of below grade parking. The project site is bounded by the Cristalla Condominium to the north, Virginia street to the south, 2nd Avenue to the East, and an 18-foot wide private alley to the west. The One Pacific Tower Condominium, which has three levels of below grade parking, was located to the west across the alley. A site layout plan is presented as Figure 1. As shown in Figure 1, the construction of the west wall required a maximum 51-foot-deep excavation, from elevation (EL) 162 feet to EL 111 feet. Adjacent to the west wall, the existing alley grade varies from elevation 154 to 161 feet, leaving a narrow block of soil 18 feet wide and up to 42 feet high to be shored along the alley in order to reach the One Pacific Tower bottom of mat foundation at EL of about 120 feet. In addition to the existing One Pacific Tower Basement wall, site constraints included existing utilities along the alley such as an existing 4.5-feet wide by 7-feet high vault, with bottom at approximate EL 146 located 10 feet from the back face of the proposed Tower 12 basement wall.

Jan 1, 2019

By Abid O. Adekunte, David Greentree, David Hilton

"The construction industry is witnessing an upsurge in demand by property developers to have basements incorporated into their residential and commercial development schemes. This is attributable to perceived improvement to aesthetic and commercial values of buildings by underground space, amongst property owners. This trend is compelling more owners of buildings with no basements to explore the possibility of creating underground additional space beneath their existing buildings. The creation of a basement beneath an existing building entails the installation of a reinforced concrete (RC) underpinning system, temporary works, bulk excavation to basement formation level and construction of the basement structure, with associated aesthetic finishes.The L-shaped segmental RC underpins are a common system of choice for such underpinning works. They are multi-functional; providing vertical support to the existing superstructure, providing lateral support to earth and groundwater, supporting temporary and permanent surcharge loads from adjacent structures and services, whilst also forming part of the basement slab. This paper focuses on the first function of the Lshaped RC underpins; capacity under vertical compressive loading from the superstructure. The most common industry approach for the prediction of vertical capacities of L-shaped underpins is the oldfashioned Meyerhof’s (1953, 1963) effective width method, which is based on the traditional bearing capacity theory, whilst accounting for correction factors for eccentricity and foundation depth.The traditional bearing capacity formula is surrounded by a significant degree of uncertainty; estimates are highly user-dependent, as capacity prediction is sensitive to the chosen angle of shearing resistance (?), while there are difficulties in accurately measuring the in-situ ??value of cohesionless soils. In addition, the effective width approach has been shown to be very conservative by many research workers. The segmental RC underpins presented in this paper have been designed with an alternative less conservative method, which involves the use of a recently proposed consistent work-hardening plasticity model calibrated with field-based tests on footings of various aspect ratios and relative embedment in sand. The paper highlights the principles behind underpinning works for urban basement construction, the design of L-shaped RC underpins with the recently proposed plasticity model and the advantages of the method over traditional bearing capacity solutions and pre-existing plasticity models."

Jan 1, 2016

Jan 1, 1998

By Nadir Ansari, Brian W. Wilson, Marina S. W. Li

"A hybrid Deep Mixing (DM) shoring system was recently constructed for a high-rise development in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for the temporary support of a five-level basement excavation. The site is bounded by an existing bridge off-ramp structure along its longest side and by city streets on the other two sides, which formed a truncated triangle in plan. A conventional secant pile wall was installed along the longest side, about 380 ft (116 m) in length, of the site. Hybrid shoring walls (HSW) 1 and 2 were installed along two shorter sides with each being 235 to 246 ft (72 to 75 m) long. HSW 3 completed the excavation support system along the shortest side with a length of about 55 ft (17 m). Cutter soil mixing (CSM) was proposed by the excavation and shoring design-build team in lieu of conventional secant piling. CSM was the preferred method to construct the infill panels between soldier piles because of the speed at which the shoring system could be constructed in the variable fill, peat, wood waste and overburden. Design ConsiderationsTo minimize the impact on buried utilities along the outside perimeter of the excavation, the temporary shoring was designed to limit the lateral displacements to less than 0.8 in (20 mm). Factors taken into consideration for shoring design included the lateral earth pressures from the fill and native soils, groundwater pressures, temporary construction loads (e.g., crane or heavy plant/equipment), and permanent structural requirements. The subsurface conditions at this site typically consisted of fill (cohesive and granular), overlying peat and/or wood waste, overlying clayey silt to sandy silt, overlying weathered to dense to very dense clayey silt till to sandy silt till with silt layers. Localized, perched groundwater was observed within the fill, peat, wood waste and sandy silt layers above the dense till."

Jan 1, 2017

By Maurice Guillaud

The most striking innovations on diaphragm-wall construction plant are those associated with continuous real-time trajectory monitoring of the excavating tool (either a grab or a hydro-cutter). The recent equipments are fitted with clinometers and gyrometers to control deflection, rotation or deviation from the vertical, thus allowing to install diaphragm-walls with a verticality accuracy of less than 0.3%. One of the greatest advantages of extensive use of on-board IT systems on the Hydrocutters and hydraulic grab machines is that it aids quality control by automatically producing complete real-time reports of all excavating data (verticality, depth, type of ground, rate of progress, stoppages, etc.). These reports are available to the Engineer, providing the total transparency required for Works Supervision and the Quality Assurance Plan. They also provide the Contractor with input data for databases used for optimising efficiency and progress criteria on future jobs.

Jan 1, 2002

By Sunil S. Basarkar, Dilip M. Dewaikar, Rajesh H. Gajjar

"A load transfer program AXPILE was developed for simulation of the loadmovement characteristics of socketed piles of the Mumbai reg ion. This program used empirical relationships for ultimate shaft resistance at pile-rock interface recommended by Zhang and Einstein (1998). According to their recommendation, ultimate shaft resistance at pile-rock interface is related to the square-root of uniaxial compressive strength of intact socket material by a parameter C, which ranges from 0.4 for smooth sockets to 0.8 for rough sockets. Results of three instrumented pile load tests were compared with the AXPILE generated results. The comparison of analytical and field estimates of the unit shaft resistance confirm the recommendations of Zhang and Einstein (1998) on the unit side shear parameter c,, which was found to be in the range of 0.35 to 0.67.INTRODUCTIONInstrumented pile load tests were carried out on the test piles at the Bandra-Worli sea link project in Mumbai city of western India. High capacity socketed piles were required to take up loads from the superstructure. Hence, in addition to the available toe resistance, an accurate measurement of the shaft resistance in socket portion was desired. The instrumented load tests incorporated Osterbergcell (0-cell) assisted by strain gauge instrumentation to estimate the shaft resistance mobilization in the socket portion.AXPILE load transfer program was developed for load-movement simulation of socketed piles (Basarkar, 2004). The load transfer algorithm based on Coyle and Reese (1966) was incorporated in this program, which used empirical correlations and functions to account for load transfer in piles through shaft and toe resistance.This paper compares the computed unit shaft resistance from the AXPILE program with the measured values recorded from the instrumented pile load test."

Jan 1, 2005

By Bradley J. Fleming

Although soil improvement and its application to deep foundations is gaining popularity in the engineering community, this technique is not widely used in high seismic regions due to lack of fundamental understanding of both the behavior of improved soils under high-strain cyclic loading and the interactions between the pile, improved soil, and unimproved soil. This paper describes part of an ongoing Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) project, where two identical full-scale steel pipe piles were driven at a soft clay site in Oklahoma. The soil surrounding one of these piles was improved using the cement deep soil mixing technique in order to enhance its lateral load behavior. Both piles were tested for seismic resistance using dynamic and quasi-static loading. The pile in unimproved soil provided larger displacements with limited lateral force resistance. This pile was subjected to lateral displacements of up to 400 mm, but experienced minimum inelastic actions. On the other hand, the pile in improved soil reached its lateral capacity at a displacement of 100 mm, at which point the critical region at the base of the pile just above the improved ground experienced buckling and fractured due to low cycle fatigue. Compared to the pile in unimproved soil, the improved ground increased the system strength by 42%. Although the soil was improved over 2900 mm, the effective improvement depth was approximately 1300 mm below the ground surface. In this paper, it is demonstrated that the effects of block type soil improvement of limited horizontal and vertical dimensions can be described using a simplified theoretical approach involving a modification to the well-known p-y representation of soil response. An example using this method is presented and shown to give adequate support to a standard 12-inch diameter steel pipe pile embedded in soft soil.

By Jianhua Wang, Jianming Yao, Zhen Meng, Jinjian Chen

"Drilled screw pile is a newly developed displacement pile foundation which has been applied in soft clay for many years. Compared with traditional circular displacement pile, It is characterized by high bearing capacity, small volume and small squeezing effects. For the purpose of investigating the squeezing effects of drilled screw pile, a full scale field monitoring test with two test piles was performed. Detailed soil horizontal displacement and pore pressure measurements were conducted in the vicinity of the two drilled screw piles during penetration and subsequent soil consolidation. It can be concluded that the horizontal displacement of the surrounding soil induced by the installation of a drilled screw pile is mainly in a circular region with a diameter of 3 m (r/D<6), and the compaction effect outside the area can be essentially negligible; The excess pore pressures measured at the same time increase with depth throughout the entire process of consolidation, and its dissipation shows an exponential decay as a function of time.INTRODUCTIONA knowledge of the displacement and stress changes induced in the soil surrounding a pile is very important for evaluating pile performance. Numerous field and laboratory research projects have examined loading conditions, total soil stresses, and excess pore pressures during and following pile installation (Pestana et al., 2002). A relatively comprehensive and detailed review of these experimental works from 1948 to 2002 was presented by Pestana et al. (2002). More recently, Xu et al. (2006) conducted a field experiment to study displacements and stresses in the vicinity of two pipe piles during their installation in a soft lightly overconsolidated clay and compared the field measurements with existing predictive methods. Abdrabbo and Gaaver (2011) collected field observation data from four different construction sites to study soil disturbance during construction of piles using continuous flight auger (CFA). They have found that the disturbed zone of soil by CFA has a conical shape and the excess pore pressure has no appreciable influence on the load capacity of the piles.Drilled screw pile (DS pile) is a kind of vibration-free, cast-in-place concrete pile. Because of the excellent bearing performance, low level of vibration pollution and negligible spoil, as well as its fast construction speed, DS pile has been widely accepted by many engineers around the world. As a new type of drilled displacement pile, the significant installation effects of DS pile on the adjacent soil have not been systematically and integrally investigated yet. Since a proper numerical simulation of the real installation process of DS pile is difficult to achieve, the investigation based on field measurements is necessary. This paper presents a field investigation of the installation effects of two DS piles on surrounding soils. Detailed horizontal soil displacement and pore pressure measurements during pile installation and subsequent soil consolidation have been conducted. Based on the monitoring data, variation of horizontal displacements and dissipation of excess pore pressures with depth and time have been analyzed. What's more, the construction machinery and technology used in DS pile installation are also simply introduced."

Jan 1, 2015

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