Search Documents

By Patrick O. Shires, Harry W. Schnabel

With stable building sites becoming scarce in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, the new Summit Senior Care Facility is being built into the side of an unstable hillside adjacent to the San Ramon Regional Medical Center in San Ramon, California. This hillside has had a long history of instability and the site of the new Senior Care Facility required excavation into both a historic old landslide and a more recent active landslide. After a thorough geotechnical study, it was concluded that the best way to build the new facility would be to construct a tied-back retaining wall in the area of the old landslide, since it extended off-site onto two adjacent properties, and remove the active landslide and replace it with compacted fill before cutting into its toe area with an additional tied-back retaining wall. The design was further complicated by the proximity of the site to several active faults. In the area of the old landslide, the combination of an ascending slope behind the wall, landslide forces and seismic forces resulted in total design pressures between 365 to 4,575 PSF for a wall with a maximum height of 30 feet. The wall for the old landslide was constructed by first drilling and placing steel soldier piles in concrete. The tip of the soldier piles extended a minimum of 12 feet below the landslide plane that was up to 36 feet below the bottom of the wall. Permanent double corrosion protected tiebacks were then installed through the soldier beams and anchored below the slide plane. A shotcrete facing was then installed on the face of the wall. BACKGROUND The site of the Summit Senior Care Facility is located on the southwest flank of Mount Diablo adjacent to San Ramon Valley which is characterized by gently rolling hills. The San Ramon Valley Regional Medical Center, which opened in 1990, is located to the north and an existing church is located to the southwest. There are also private residences located to the southeast. The site is shown in Figure 1. Numerous faults run close to the site, the most significant of which are the Calaveras and Pleasanton faults. The site has also had a long history of slope instability and has been the subject of numerous investigations. Studies conducted in 1979 and 1984 concluded that there was a landslide in the area and recommended that a buttress shear key be constructed between the subject site and the existing church for a sewer main as well as removal and replacement of the head area of the old landslide to stabilize the hospital site. While two previous geotechnical studies in 2008 and 2016 identified slope instability, they did not recognize the genesis and limits of the old landslide on the western portion of the site or the limits of the active landslide on the eastern portion of the site.

Jan 1, 2018

By Jesús E. Gómez

This work is a continuation of a paper presented in the 32nd DFI Annual Conference, Colorado 2007, titled ?Hollow Core Bar Micropiles - Design parameters interpreted from 260 load tests.? The first paper presented the results of the verification and proof tests performed for the retrofit of two bridges with hollow core bars that used 260 micropiles. It included an interpretation of the unit bond values in the different soils where micropiles were installed. Recently two additional bridges within the same geological environment were also retrofitted using 144 hollow core micropiles. This paper includes the interpretation of the additional data from the proof tests performed and refines recommended values for design of hollow core bar micropiles in soils similar to those encountered in these two projects. The authors believe that the data collected will significantly add to the relatively small existing database on micropile tests and may also be useful during implementation of the LRFD design methodology.

Jan 1, 2008

By G. G. Goble

Dynamic pile testing is now over 20 years old as a routinely applied tool for evaluating driven pile installation. The first test on a cast-in-place pile was performed more that 15 years ago. The research that produced the method began almost 30 years ago. But, questions still arise regarding the appropriate use of this technique so some review is useful. Today a number of methods including dynamic testing all depending in some way on the application of dynamics are in routine use. First, Wave Equation analysis can be used to predict pile driveability before going to the field. The same approach can be used during driving to estimate the bearing capacity based on the blow count observed in the field. Dynamic measurements, on the other hand, can only be used after pile driving has begun. They offer predictions of pile capacity as well as measurements of hammer, driving system, and pile driving performance characteristics. The first part of this paper will be devoted to discussing how the foundation engineer can use these tools. First, a brief review of what dynamic methods actually do. In Wave Equation analysis a numerical model of the hammer, driving system, pile, and the soil is created by the engineer. The hammer is dropped on the pile and using a discrete, dynamic analysis the motion of the individual pile elements is calculated as a function of time. Of course, input information must be supplied by the program user to describe the hammer, driving system, pile, and soil. In the current state of development, the primary problem in input data is with the hammer performance (efficiency) and the soil description. Research may be able to do a better job with the soil data, but hammer performance will always vary from hammer to hammer and is dependent on the affectiveness of the inspection process. Prior to beginning pile driving the Wave Equation analysis supplies the best available estimate of what will happen when driving begins. It gives an estimate of blow count during driving, driving stresses, both tension and compression in the pile, and for diesel hammers, stroke. The selection of the driving system can be checked with the results of Wave Equation analysis and modifications can be made if required. For example, if the blow count at the required capacity was deemed excessive by the contractor a larger hammer could be tried or if driving stresses were too high changes could be made in the cushion or the hammer selection could be modified. All of these modifications are possible with only the cost of a computer run. The primary questions regarding the accuracy and reliability of Wave Equation analysis at this time is with regard to the assumptions made to represent the soil characteristics and the difficulty in predicting hammer performance.

Jan 1, 1993

By Jacob Chacko

The Izmit Bay bridge, a 3-km-long suspension bridge crossing of Izmit Bay, Turkey is planned to be constructed in one of the most seismically active places in the world. The site, which has the potential to experience significant earthquakes associated with the relative motion accommodated on the North Anatolian Fault, is underlain by deep deposits of soft soils, and areas of unstable and liquefiable soils. Characterizing the seismotectonic setting, foundation soil conditions, potential fault locations, as well as other geohazards was a critical component for the project concessionaire to finance the project and obtain meaningful bids for bridge design and construction. Given the Build Operate Transfer (BOT) funding mechanism, executing this work in the least possible time was critical to the concessionaire?s financing scheme. Fugro was retained to provide geotechnical, geological, and seismological evaluations for the project region, and to generate data for contractors to develop reliable designs and bids. The uncertainties in these data made it difficult for the BOT concessionaire to finance the project and tender Bridge design and construction. The investment in an early and comprehensive site characterization program to evaluate and quantify those uncertainties allowed the concessionaire to save schedule, provide a robust bid basis to bridge contractors, and persuade banks to finance what was perceived to be a relatively high risk project.

Jan 1, 2011

By M. England

Test equipment has been developed to record automatically both the displacement of the pile head and the load applied during a conventional maintained load pile test. Some systems also have, in addition, been fitted with the facility for maintaining the applied load, as set by the operator, at very constant levels. The advantages are both commercial and technical, but a well trained operator has to be in attendance to control the test. Since typical test specifications in the UK require more than 19 hours to complete, it became inevitable that at least one equipment operator remained on site to expedite the test for its duration. Although electronic measurement and data logging of load tests may be more safe than previous direct observation of dial gauges. A single person remaining on a construction site alone is not to be recommended, even if they are just supervising the test. Further development of the testing system produced equipment which will perform the entire test specification as required without operator intervention. To achieve this, full automation is employed. The patented method particularly addresses the safety requirements and by using additional sensors, detects any uncharacteristic behaviour of the pile under test or of the reaction system and the equipment takes appropriate action in a controlled and safe manner. The quality of test data returned from these automated systems is a key element when analysing pile behaviour with models such as CEMSOLVE? and TIMESETTM. These analysis methods often indicate ground disturbance resulting from installation technique and have allowed pile design to be optimised using actual field data rather than theoretical considerations alone. An additional feature is remote access, this allows the data recorded to be transferred and the progress of the test to be viewed from practically any location. This permits experts to view the data 'live' and allows rapid diagnosis of any problems with the expected pile behaviour.

Jan 1, 2002

Jan 1, 1997

Jan 1, 1988

By Walter E. Vanderpool

Three drilled foundations for an elevated water-tank were instrumented, tested and monitored during construction and the first two years in service. One shaft was load tested by the Osterberg method. A void was detected in one shaft by cross-hole sonic logging, pulse-echo logging and concrete coring. The void was instrumented, hydrostatically tested and pressure grouted. The shaft was ?abandoned? and replaced by two smaller shafts with a straddle beam cap. One of the replacement shafts and the cap were instrumented. The strain that appeared in the abandoned shaft, the replacement shaft and the cap were monitored during the remainder of the construction, through the commissioning test and the first two years of service. The results demonstrate the precision and sensitivity of the vibrating wire strain gage.

Jan 1, 2004

By John P. Davis

The use of conventional, circulatory air rotary and fluid rotary, cased and uncased drilling methods in the vicinity of sensitive infrastructure can have deleterious effects on the ground conditions surrounding and supporting structures and the structure itself. Furthermore, the use of these conventional methods offers the engineer or contractor little information about the condition of the subsurface during geotechnical applications. Conversely, sonic drilling measurements and samples can be used to evaluate actual conditions during the progress of exploration and construction across a given site. This paper will discuss the history and properties of sonic drilling and explore case histories of geotechnical applications for the advancement of boreholes within vulnerable structures and on sensitive sites for several recent infrastructure projects ? a tunnel and railroad project, a dam grout curtain project, a bridge micropile exploration project and a tunnel instrumentation project. Project summaries will discuss the advantages realized when the application of sonic drilling techniques demonstrated superior accuracy, quality control, efficiency, productivity, penetrability, waste minimization and adaptability when drilling adjacent to or within existing infrastructure. Finally, the discussion will address the current testing and application of sonic drilling to the installation of micropiles, earth retention anchors, grout injection and instrumentation installation where the quality control benefits provided by the inherent soil cores, measurement while drilling systems, accuracy and non-destructive production drilling features will be advantageous.

Jan 1, 2006

By Lori A. Simpson

Mission Bay is a 300-acre reclaimed site in San Francisco, California, that is currently being redeveloped. Plans include new neighborhoods, parks, a new University of California, San Francisco, research and development campus, a biotechnology campus, and commercial office buildings. New infrastructure is being constructed throughout the site, consisting of utilities, pump stations, and roadways. Previously, Mission Bay was a part of the San Francisco Bay. Reclamation of the shallow bay coincided with the booming development in San Francisco in the 1880s and continued through 1920. Subsurface conditions are extremely variable throughout the site. The stratigraphy generally consists of 5 to 45 feet of fill, up to 140 feet of weak, compressible clay (?Bay Mud?), dense sand, stiff clay, and bedrock of the Franciscan Complex that has been encountered 5 to 210 feet below the ground surface (bgs). Geotechnical issues related to these subsurface conditions include liquefaction, lateral spreading, settlement, and adequate foundation support. This paper presents case studies of the geotechnical aspects of design and construction of several buildings in Mission Bay, highlighting the similarities and variability in the subsurface conditions and the different conclusions and solutions developed for each project. The case studies will include: 1) a building supported on steel H-piles where the depth to bearing varies from about 70 feet bgs in one half of the site to 165 feet bgs in the other half; 2) a building supported on precast, prestressed, concrete piles bearing in a thick, very dense sand layer; 3) a building with over 100 feet of Bay Mud supported on 120- to 180-foot-long PCPS concrete piles driven to bedrock adjacent to buildings supported on steel H-piles driven to bedrock; and 4) sites where auger pressure grouted displacement piles (APGD) and Tubex piles were installed. Case studies will include results of pile driving analyzer (PDA) testing and static pile loads tests, where performed.

Jan 1, 2006

By David G. Winter

The Olive 8 excavation site in Seattle was surrounded on three sides by conditions requiring innovation, careful modeling, and extensive instrumentation to support use of a first-of-its-kind shoring system. The solution combined heavy soldier piles, long and steeply angled tieback anchors, and tightly spaced soil nails to support surcharge loads from a 33-story adjacent tower separated by a narrow alley housing critical utility lines. Land restrictions on two other sides of the site also required innovative applications of traditional methods. The Olive 8 project has won three state and local awards for innovation and has been reported on in Engineering News-Record and has been the subject of two feature articles in the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce. This paper presents the conditions and site challenges, reviews the design analysis, discusses the shoring performance, and looks at other potential applications.

Jan 1, 2009

By N. C. Matheson

The West's Shell Pile has been used on sites with very soft ground conditions for over 60 years. Fibre reinforced precast concrete shells 900mm long are threadled onto an internal mandrel which can be extended according to the depth driven to attain the load bearing resistance. On completion of driving the mandrel is removed leaving the precast shells to form a permanent lining to the cast insitu concrete core. To give resistance to high contamination, a tar based epoxy coat is sprayed on the outside of the shells or a flexible PVC liner is installed inside the shells to protect the core. Fundamental to the resistance to contamination is the quality of the precast fibre reinforced concrete shell, the mix design and method of manufacture. A series of detailed laboratory experiments were carried out using samples immersed in concentrated acid and sulphate solution. The long term effects of exposure to contamination is recorded in the case studies of existing piles at two gasworks sites.

Jan 1, 1989

Jan 1, 1984

By Tony Brunger, Abid O. Adekunte, George Munteanu, David Greentree

A number of novel solutions have been proposed in recent years as alternatives to props and tie-backs in deep excavation support e.g. Adekunte (2008), Deschamps et. al. (2008), Adekunte et al. (2010) and Adekunte (2014). A number of these non-standard restraining solutions involve the construction of permanent or temporary vertical or raking buttress piles that are rigidly connected to the excavation support wall at regular intervals along the wall run. This paper chiefly focuses on the design and construction of twin-vertical buttress piles as restraining systems behind or in front of embedded retaining walls. The system essentially relies on the push-pull mechanism that develops between the twin piles, to maintain the overall stability of the excavation support. The paper’s main areas of concentration include; finite element modelling, geostructural design, construction procedure, instrumentation and monitoring that are associated with the application of twin- buttress pile systems. These are supported with project details of three recently completed high-end luxurious residential developments in Greater London, England, on which the twin-buttress pile system was used to restrain the excavation support walls for the basements on the sites. The mode of application of the system varies across the three sites. While the system was adopted as a long term solution behind the retaining wall on one of the sites, it was designed and constructed for temporary use in front of the retaining walls on the other two sites. Instrumentation and monitoring results from all the sites show the non-traditional system to be safe and effective, whilst having significant beneficial effects on construction programme, sequence of works and project cost.

Jan 1, 2018

By Upendra L. Karna

The pile capacity gain with time evaluated and implemented for the construction of the Route 21 Viaduct in Newark, NJ, U.S.A is discussed in this paper. The project consisted of the replacement of more than 3.2 km of viaduct and ramps. The project site consists of thick residual materials deposited by the Wisconsin Glacier over sedimentary rocks. The upper portion is glacial-lacustrine deposit underlain by marginal morainic till and stratified drift. Subsurface investigations identified significant variations in layer thickness and grain size consistency. The site was characterized into 4 Soil types, based on subsurface soil behavior. Closed end 600 mm and 450 mm diameter driven pipe piles were used for the foundation. Loading tests conducted during an advanced construction contract, established that a significant soil set-up could be expected. For the first construction contract, a pilot loading test program consisting of 112 dynamic loading tests and 77 re-strikes (at 2 to 4 weeks) using the PDA (Pile Driving Analyzer) with CAPWAP (Case Pile Wave Analyses Program) was conducted to establish the soil set-up behavior. Nine (9) quick static loading tests were conducted to substantiate the long-term pile capacity. Based on the loading test results, average set-up factors were established and utilized for developing production pile driving criteria. Bearing resistance with depth was analyzed and reviewed. The set-up factors varied significantly, ranging from 1.05 to 1.89, and averaged about 1.30. Conclusions are derived. Set-up factors behavior for each soil type plotted by linear regression are presented and discussed. An appropriate set-up with time relationship for a glacial soil is suggested.

Jan 1, 2006

By Gary L. Seider

Helical screw piles are used in various applications including the underpinning of distressed foundations and as deep foundations for new structures. At present, maximum design loads range between 12.5 and 50 tons. Helical piles installed with in-situ grouting of the central steel shaft are a relatively new type of deep foundation, which have extended the present maximum design loads to the 100-ton range. Vickars & Clemence discussed this new foundation system in a paper presented at GEO-Denver 2000 in Denver, CO. Over the past three years, grouted shaft helicals have been used successfully on remedial and new construction projects all across North America. The authors have studied several construction projects in a variety of soil conditions to compile a list of practical design guidelines. Those guidelines include installability of grouted shaft helicals based on soil type, equipment requirements, grout selection, and theoretical vs. actual load capacity. In a number of cases, full-scale, field load tests were conducted in both granular and cohesive soils and the results broken down between tip resistance on the helix bearing plates and friction resistance on the grouted shaft. Data is presented which will further efforts to develop a design model and method to accurately predict the axial and lateral capacity of grouted shaft helicals.

Jan 1, 2003

By James A. Schneider

The evolution of the American Petroleum Institute (API) design method for axial capacity of driven piles in siliceous sands is explored, and complemented with an overview of how changes in offshore site investigation practice have increased the level of knowledge with respect to vertical variability of soil characteristics. Increased use of the cone penetration test (CPT) provides near continuous profiles of soil type and strength which can be used in calculation methods that address variation in local shaft friction rather than the API method which seems to have initially been based on observations of average shaft friction in relatively uniform sand deposits. Development of a formulation for CPT correlations to axial pile capacity in sand is discussed, along with implications to existing factors of safety used in routine design.

Jan 1, 2006

By Michael W. Neill, O&apos

Drilling slurry has become an effective aid to the construction of drilled shafts in caving and/or waterbearing soils. Historically, drilling slurry made of bentonitic clay and water was first used in the US in water well drilling as early as 1889. In coastal Texas drilled shaft contractors began using slurry, often made of on-site clay mixed with potable water, in the years following World War II, on a relatively routine basis. This type of slurry was used to "process" boreholes, in which the borehole was drilled "in the dry" until water or unstable soil was encountered, after which water and on-site clay were introduced into the borehole and mixed in place with the auger or other drilling tool. Drilling then continued under a slurry consisting of the uncontrolled mixture of clay and water until the excavation had reached a relatively impermeable and cohesive material. At this point, a steel casing was dropped into the hole and sealed into the lower stratum of impermeable geomaterial (soil or rock). The slurry inside the casing was bailed or pumped out, drilling continued to plan depth in the dry, a reinforcing cage was set in the partially cased borehole, concrete was placed and the casing was withdrawn. Some soil-slurry was undoubtedly trapped between the casing and the borehole wall, but the quality of that slurry was usually of no concern, because engineers of the period usually viewed drilled shafts as nothing more than deeply buried footings. Any unejected slurry would only serve to lower side shearing resistance, not yet considered in design, but would have no effect on end bearing. In the 1960 's the effectiveness of soil-slurry came into question because it was often ineffective in maintaining borehole stability at marginal drilling sites and because the economy of using shaft resistance, in addition to end

Jan 1, 1991

By Tatsunori Matsumoto

In order to investigate the variation of the load-displacement relations of piles in a site, vertical load tests were carried out on 25 small diameter steel pipe piles. Out of 25 piles, 15 piles were close-ended pipe piles attached with a blade at the pile toe and 10 piles were open-ended pipe piles. To carry out these load tests in a short period, two types of rapid load test methods, Spring hammer load test and Falling mass load test, were employed. The load tests of all piles were completed in two days with 180 blows in total. In order to estimate a static load-displacement of a pile, non-linear damping method was used. It is shown from the test results that the performance of the pipe piles such as the ultimate pile resistance and the initial pile head stiffness is improved by re-driving.

Jan 1, 2006

By Alan J. Lutenegger

Some years ago, a method was developed to incorporate a grout column around square-shaft helical screw-piles and anchors to increase shaft buckling resistance under compression loading. An additional benefit of this grouted shaft is to increase the load capacity in both compression and tension, depending on the geometry of the lead helical section and the soil conditions. Because of the unique construction procedure, the contribution of the shaft to the total capacity has largely been unknown. The behavior of grouted shaft helical anchors in clay was investigated by performing full-scale axial uplift (tension) load tests on a series of anchors installed at the University of Massachusetts Geotechnical Test Site. In order to isolate the contribution of the grouted shaft to the total load capacity, anchors were installed with a wooden dowel connection between the lead helical section and extension sections on three of the four anchors so that only the shaft resistance would be measured during the load tests. The grouted shafts ranged in length from 10 to 30 ft (3 to 9 m). Initial tests were performed approximately 5½ months after installation. Nearly four years after the initial tests were performed, the tests were repeated to evaluate any significant change in capacity with time and/or repeat testing (preshearing). The soil conditions at the site are presented along with the load-displacement curves for both the initial and repeat teats and a discussion of the analysis of the results. Repeat load tests showed an increase in capacity from the initial testing, however the percent increase was not the same for all depths. The results demonstrate that considerable shaft resistance can be developed in clays from the grouted shafts as might be expected. Depending on the L/D ratio of the shaft and the contribution of the lead helical section, at working loads the shaft capacity can dominate the behavior.

Jan 1, 2011