Innovative Micropile Underpinning of a Historic Structure

A 52-story high rise building in Philadelphia is constructed adjacent to a 3-story historic structure, supported on a rubble foundation at a depth of 2.4 m (8 ft) below grade. The high rise is supported on a mat foundation at a depth 36 ft below grade with an average service contact pressure of 670 kPa (14 ksf). Evidently, the existing foundation requires underpinning but extra care is necessary to safeguard the historic building. A detailed finite element analysis showed that the mat foundation would settle about 38 mm (1.5 in). Although such settlement would be acceptable for the high rise it would cause intolerable distress to the historic building by dragging down its underpinning. To minimize the settlement impact, an innovative micropile solution was implemented to safely transfer the underpinning load into the underlying mica schist bedrock and prevent the existing building from being overstressed by the mat foundation. The specifics of the micropile pile design and associated details are presented herein. The new building was completed almost two years ago and the adjacent historic building has been functioning well without any signs of distress.