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By A. Partos

It was decided to build a fourteen-storied office building over a six-storied garage and a four-storied office building. The high vertical and horizontal loads required foundations on rock approximately 18m below street level. Drilled piers (caissons) were selected. Eight caissons (1.98m diameter) were installed through the six-storied garage and four caissons from a temporary deck at the location of a former two-storied building. Excavations were done by the slurry method. Proof testing of rock was done before construction by test borings and during construction with a core barrel of small diameter. Quality control measures included telecommunications between ground crews and the equipment operator on the garage roof; records of field observations and testing of bentonite slurry and rock; and a continuous evaluation of all information. Instruments were installed in one caisson to monitor load distributions and curing of concrete.

Jan 1, 2010

By Lawrence F. Johnsen

Six case histories are presented in which tall, slender high rises are supported on high capacity minicaissons. The recent development of a high strength rebar cage has resulted in compressive loads of up to 3400 kips on 24 inch diameter minicaissons. Provisions in the pending NYC building code will allow borehole video inspection in lieu of load testing. The ?new? technology results from the marriage of several well established methods: rotary duplex well drilling, high capacity micropiles and high capacity reinforced concrete building columns.

Jan 1, 2007

By Matthew C. Pierson

Due to space limitations for transportation projects, many times sound walls must be constructed above mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) walls. These sound walls must resist lateral loads from wind or impact and must therefore be constructed on drilled shafts passing through the reinforced fill for the MSE Wall. Current design methods for the drilled shafts are believed to be overly conservative. Full scale lateral load testing of three foot diameter shafts contained within and solely supported by a 20 foot tall MSE block wall was conducted and the lateral capacity was evaluated. Shafts were tested individually and as a group. The data collected from full scale testing was then used to calibrate numerical models. This paper contains a discussion of how the facing type and stiffness affects the behavior of the numerical model as well as selected comparisons between the actual test data and selected model simulation results.

Jan 1, 2009

By Jesús E. Gómez

A recent bridge underpinning project provided a unique opportunity to obtain information on the load-deflection response of 260 hollow-core bar micropiles. All production micropiles were proof-tested to a maximum load of 125 percent of the design load. In addition, four verification tests were performed on sacrificial micropiles to at least two and a half times the design loads. This paper presents the results of the verification and proof tests performed for this project, and provides recommended values for design of hollow core bar micropiles in soils similar to those encountered. This work shows that hollow core bar micropiles provide a significant unit bond capacity in both granular and fine soils, which may be greater than that typically expected in pressure-grouted (Type B) micropiles. The hollow core bar system allows faster installation rates in the soil types encountered than other traditional micropile techniques, and can be installed with relatively simple quality control procedures.

Jan 1, 2007

By J. W. Slatter

Cast in situ screw piling techniques (both displacement and non displacement) have seen considerable growth in recent years due to competitive production rates, low noise and vibration free installation. However the discussion on the mechanics of auger installation, which has implications on the installation effects and installation forces of screw piling augers, has been almost exclusively targeted towards non displacement techniques and in particular continuous flight augers (CFA). This paper discusses the historical development of the understanding of screw piling auger mechanics in sands and presents a new theoretical model to predict the soil transport and displacement characteristics of both displacement and non displacement augers with variable geometry.

Jan 1, 2000

By Lawrence Piccagli

This past spring of 2006, BENCOR installed the concrete reinforced diaphragm walls for the COSMOPOLITAN RESORT & CASINO in Las Vegas, Nevada. The project highlights include the excavation of approx. 326.000 square feet of reinforced diaphragm slurry wall with a thickness of 30 inches and a depth of 100 feet using three reverse circulation trench cutters (hydromills) at the same time. The reinforcing steel cages were fabricated on the 8 acre jobsite and approximately 12,000 cubic yards of 4500 psi concrete was placed via tremie. The jobsite logistics of coordinating three trench cutters and three separate desanding/slurry plants as well as the reinforcing steel fabrication and concrete placement all under a very tight schedule was quite challenging. A second main exercise was the execution of a temporary excavation support. As the excavation depths extends between 66 and 72 feet, five to six rows of temporary tieback anchors were required. Anchor lengths range from 43 -83 feet at a maximum design load of 235 kips.

Jan 1, 2007

By Michel Bustamante

The original Cistercian Lure abbey situated in eastern France and built in the second half of the 16th century, has become nowadays an administrative building. Because it has been founded on poor ground conditions and inadequate foundation scheme, the abbey has suffered severe structural distortion. In 1992 an inspection revealed new extensive damages which led to a general refection together with a foundation underpinning. Micropiling was the selected method. Movements recorded over a period of 6 years after underpinning completion are presented.

Jan 1, 2002

By Khamis Y. Haramy

Curing temperature, density, and moisture significantly affect the velocity measured in the crosshole sonic logging, the rate of strength gain, and the final strength of concrete in drilled shafts and, thereby, affect their structure capacities. Non-destructive field measurements can enhance the QA/QC program by measuring temperature, density, moisture, and sonic velocity of curing concrete during the construction and curing of drilled shafts. The curing environment can greatly affect the concrete strength, and requires close attention during construction. This article shares the experience with the NDE technology used in the QA/QC program in the drilled shaft construction. To understand the mechanism by which a drilled shaft cures under field conditions, two newly constructed drilled shafts were monitored for up to seven days, immediately following concrete placement using the following geophysical logging methods: a) temperature logging; b) crosshole sonic logging; c) gamma-gamma density logging; and d) neutron-moisture logging. One additional drilled shaft was also monitored to a shorter duration. Temperatures were monitored using the sensor in access tubes and/or thermocouples embedded at the center of a drilled shaft and near its reinforcing cage. For a small shaft under 1m diameter, curing temperatures appeared to peak at 41° ? 68° C at different depths at around 24-hour curing time and decreased to and stabilized at around 23° ? 35° C in 6 days. The shaft curing rate varied with depth, shaft diameter, surrounding geo-material types, and the depth of ground water. CSL logging was performed in one shaft from top to bottom from six access tubes and limited monitoring in another shaft. The velocity increased with curing time till 4 to 7 days, and, at a specific time, the velocity appeared to be inversely correlated to curing temperatures. The gamma-gamma density log (GDL) results from 5 different depths were obtained at a source-detector separation of 355 mm. The average density was found to increase with curing time, but decrease slightly in 3 to 5 days. At a given time the GDL density curves seemed to correlate with the neutron monitoring logging (NML) moisture curve. The NML moisture was monitored from 1st to 6th day after concrete placement. The moisture was highest when surrounded by bedrock, then clay, and sand due to different hydration rates.

Jan 1, 2007

By Tomohide Takeyama, Binh T. T. Nguyen, Masaki Kitazume

"Deep mixing columns are widely used to support embankments constructed on soft ground area. Researches on the stability of deep mixing columns were done by some authors when the columns do not simultaneously fail but individually fail at different time. A layer of shallow mixing is proposed to reinforce these columns as a group to increase the stability as well as loading capacity of columned improved area. Two centrifuge model tests were done to observe the effect of shallow layer on reducing embankment displacement as well as on failure pressure of improved ground. Acrylic piles were used as deep mixing columns in the centrifuge tests to avoid unexpected internal failure of columns. The results of centrifuge tests were also simulated by 2D FEM to back-analyze the centrifuge experiments. A good agreement between the centrifuge experiments and the numerical simulations shows that by using a shallow layer reinforcing individual columns, the horizontal displacement at the embankment toe reduces by 60 % and the tilting failure is clearly indicated in columns without shallow layer. Although, no significant failure was observed under the current centrifuge condition, the failure pressure of improved ground was significantly increased with the columns reinforced by shallow layer.INTRODUCTIONCement or lime and soil mixing technique was firstly used in Japan and Nordic countries since 1970s. The technique is used to improve soft soil by increasing its mechanical properties including strength and consolidation characteristics (Kitazume and Terashi 2013). Various researches were done to investigate the characteristics of mixing material due to various factors including types of binder, condition of soil, mixing condition and curing condition (Terashi 1997). On the other hand, many studies focused on the application of in-situ mixing technique such as supporting embankment and underground structure as well as working as the foundation of building and factory (Kitazume and Terashi 2013). In term of embankment supporting, column-type improvement is taken into account for huge applications. Due to loading from embankment, the deep mixing columns tend to fail either external failure (Kitazume and Maruyama 2006) or internal failure (Kitazume and Maruyama 2007). However, the deep mixing columns do not fail simultaneously but instead one by one at different time (Kitazume and Maruyama 2007). Because the deep mixing columns work and fail individually, the strength and stiffness of all columns cannot be mobilized simultaneously. By using a shallow mixing layer fixing the top of deep mixing columns, individual columns may work simultaneously. A combined technology of shallow stabilization and floating-type cement treated columns is used to reduce settlement of a high embankment on soft ground (Ishikura et al. 2007). A research on effect of surface improvement layer on internal stability of group column type deep mixing improved ground under embankment load was reported in the Port and Airport Research Institute, Japan (Kitazume 2011). However, the failure pattern of shallow and deep mixing combined structure has not well studied. This research focuses on the external failure mechanism of the combined structure by centrifuge model tests and back-analyzed simulation using 2D finite element method. The effect of shallow layer on embankment displacement and the yield point of the improved ground is also discussed in this study."

Jan 1, 2015

By Frank Borda

Two recent projects were completed in Ontario, Canada for major hospital additions that involved excavation support of heritage masonry structures. Conventional continuous caisson wall schemes were replaced, with significant cost savings, by tied back shotcrete systems. Using a combination of conventional design and FLAC analysis, excavation support was designed to permit excavation in competent to weak soils that limited horizontal movements of the existing structures to between 3 and 8 mm. The use of vertical wall elements (micropiles) integral to the shotcrete wall to support both the vertical wall loads and the face of the excavation was deemed to significantly reduce lateral and vertical wall movements. FLAC analysis was used successfully to predict wall movements and optimize design. The shotcrete method proved to be flexible and adaptable to design changes during the project. This permitted convenient accommodation of changes to the building geometry after excavation support had commenced. In addition the method accommodated staged demolition and excavation support of portions of the existing structure at low cost, conveniently and without delays.

Jan 1, 2004

By K. Ronald Chapman, Claus Ludwig, Doug Jenevein

"In the spring of 2005 Schnabel Foundation Company completed a $15.2 million Design/Build subcontract to underpin 11 structures, and provide 202,800 square feet of earth retention for the Reno Transportation Rail Access Corridor (ReTRAC) project in Reno, Nevada. Schnabel’s work was part of a Design/Build contract to depress a railroad alignment through downtown Reno. The depressed section was 2.2 miles long, 54 ft wide, and up to 35 ft deep (3.5 km long, 16.5m wide and up to 10.7m deep). The trench structure was required to be watertight. SUBCONTRACT WORK OVERVIEWEleven buildings along the track alignment required underpinning. Three types of underpinning were used, designated Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3.At four buildings the trench retaining walls were to be located directly under the exterior footings. This alignment eliminated traditional underpinning and cut-off wall techniques that could normally be used to support structures. Type 1 underpinning was used at these buildings. This underpinning system consisted of a combination of permeation grouting, hand-dug piers, and permanent tiebacks. This underpinning system became the new watertight trench walls.Five buildings were located a few feet behind the trench walls, and their exterior walls were supported by continuous footings. Type 2 micropile/pile cap underpinning (patent pending) was used to support these buildings.The remaining two buildings were also located a few feet behind the trench walls, but they had column footings along the exterior walls. At these structures traditional micropile underpinning was provided through the existing footings. This is described as Type 3 underpinning.Temporary earth retention was required on both sides of the trench along most of the alignment. This shoring supported frontage roads, private property and surcharge from the temporary railroad shoofly running parallel to one side of the trench.SUBSURFACE CONDITIONSThe soil along the trench alignment consisted of river outwash deposits. The top 2 to 18 feet (0.6m to 5.5m) generally consisted of flood plain silt and sand deposits, or fine-grained fills. These fine-grained soils are underlain by the Tahoe Outwash Formation which consists of interbedded layers of sand; sand and gravel; and sand, gravel, cobbles and boulders. Some of these layers encountered during construction consisted of 30 to 50 percent cobbles and boulders, with some boulders up to eight feet in diameter.A major challenge to the design and construction of the trench structures and the underpinning was the ground water table which was 10 feet (3m) above subgrade in the deepest portions of the trench. Based on specification restrictions, temporary and permanent dewatering was not feasible. As a result, the selected design and construction methods had to consider three water conditions: the anticipated groundwater level during construction (CGW), the groundwater level for permanent design (DGW), and an additional special design condition with water at street grade."

Jan 1, 2006

By Sun Gengsheng

Geotechnical properties of soils, usual types of pile foundations, pile capacity, calculation of settlements of pile foundations, usual types of retaining structures for deep excavation, stability analysis of retaining structures and Anti-buoyancy soil anchors in Shanghai.

Jan 1, 1991

By H. R. Shen

Cushion materials are one of the most important links in an efficient piling system. In the past, little has been done in China on this problem, so engineers are still used to those traditional woods, papers and coir ropes. In this paper, the SOA of piling cushions, their testing method and parameters used in wave equation analysis for piling are briefly reviewed. The static and dynamic mechanical characteristics of 3 types of cushion material have been determined in laboratory and suggestions about testing method and evaluation of test results are given.

Jan 1, 2010

By Tracy Brettmann

The Highway 146 Bridge Expansion Project across the Clear Creek Channel in Houston, Texas was designed on driven precast concrete piles. However, during construction, the piles along one side of the bridge along the main channel encountered obstructions and couldn’t be installed. These obstructions turned out to be the remnants of a previous bridge foundation at this location, which was unknown to the designers since that bridge had been demolished 40 years ago. Those old foundations were massive 20 ft by 40 ft (6 m by 12 m) pile caps 11 ft (3.3 m) thick supported on precast concrete piles 37 to 55 ft (11 to 17 m) long. The foundation re-design for these locations involved installing a single 78 inch (2 m) diameter drilled shaft up to 125 ft (38 m) long to replace the originally planned driven pile supported pile cap. The drilled shafts would need to be installed within very tight tolerances since they were supporting a single bridge column directly above it. In addition to drilling through the obstructions, this work would need to be completed from barges in 30 ft (9 m) of water capable of dealing with both the current and tides affecting this area. The shafts were installed using a multi-step process. The first step involved coring a larger diameter 100 inch (2.5 m) hole through the reinforced concrete pile cap and removing the concrete inside. This was followed by the installation of a 72 ft (22 m) long permanent casing to and removing the soil and existing precast piles inside. Finally, the drilled shaft excavations were advanced to the completion depths (uncased) using bentonite slurry as the support fluid.

May 1, 2022

By R. K. M. Bhandari

Geotechnical investigation for a LPG plant located in Assam state - an area of high seisimicty - revealed a layer of loose to medium silty sand susceptible to liquefaction at some depth below the finished ground surface. Liquefaction analyses were carried out using simplified Seed's approach as well as considering the progressive buildup of pore pressures with cyclic earthquake loading. Seismic settlements were computed for areas where the analysis indicated partial liquefaction. Pile foundations in areas where complete liquefaction was indicated, were treated with gravel drains to prevent buildup of pore pressures. The paper presents and discusses the liquefaction analyses, effect of non-liquefiable overburden soil on the liquefaction potential of the silty sand and the remedial measures that have been taken to ensure safety of the pile foundations in transmitting vertical and lateral loads.

Jan 1, 1996

By Z. Q. Bian

The wireline sampling originates from core drilling in rocks. The authors combined the wireline sampling technique with conventional undisturbed soil samplers, including Osterberg sampler, Denison sampler and double tube barrel, and then developed the wireline samplers of WPS, WSS and WSR models. These samplers are able to sample various soils. They reserve all the advantages of the original samplers, and moreover, they are noted with quick hoisting and lowering by wire rope. Therefore, it becomes an efficient new technique of sampling undisturbed soil from deep foundation.

Jan 1, 2010

By K. Fujita

In order to deal properly with the fundamental aspects of pile construction, the following problems and their solutions are introduced: For driven piles - stresses, damage, movements of surroundings, compaction of ground, deviation of pile direction and location, selection of pile hammers and penetrability of piles are important factors. For drilled piles -loosening of the ground, supports for boreholes, minimizing ground loosening and defects are critical items. Attention should be given to changing soil characteristics. Also, supervision by experienced engineers and good workmanship by skilled laborers are recommended to ensure the quality of the piles.

Jan 1, 2010

By Terence P. Holman

Instrumented load testing of high capacity micropiles, followed by detailed analysis and numerical modeling, provided an opportunity for real foundation performance to be incorporated into the design of a complex urban high-rise structure. This paper discusses a design-based load testing program and subsequent analysis for micropiles incorporated into a piled raft foundation beneath a portion of a high-rise residential structure in Brooklyn, New York. Preliminary numerical analysis, performed using the commercial finite element package PLAXIS 3D Foundation, indicated that soil stiffening and transferring heavy core loads to greater depths was required to minimize the total and differential settlements. High capacity micropiles were modeled below the tower core mat to create a piled raft effect, reducing the settlements to acceptable levels. Final design of the foundation and micropiles, and final numerical analysis of the proposed foundation system required an instrumented load testing program to provide the Owner and design team with a level of comfort. The instrumented load test provided data on the evolution of load transfer, including the mobilization of significant tip resistance, frequently ignored in design, and micropile axial stiffness. Final numerical analysis of the foundation system involved refining the PLAXIS model based on the micropile behavior and load transfer mechanism observed during the load test program. The authors believe that the combination of design-based load testing and numerical analysis in this project yielded a more refined foundation system with realistic expectations of performance.

Jan 1, 2007

By Rouzbeh Vakili, Adel M. Hanna

"The application of piled raft foundations has significantly increased during the last few years. In this system, the raft and the pile group collectively transfer the applied building load to the underlying soil layers. Determination of load sharing between the raft and the piles derives the complexity of piled raft designs due to its multi-parameter nature. These parameters are but not limited to: soil density, pile length, pile spacing, raft geometry, and piles installation technique. This study is to examine experimentally the effect of sand density and pile installation techniques on the load sharing mechanism. Experimentally, tests were conducted on a square rigid raft with a single pile in sand under three different soil densities; 30%, 45%, and 60%. The experimental results are used to determine the pile and the raft shares in non-displacement and displacement piled raft systems. The results of this study reveal that soil density changes the load sharing of displacement piled raft; the pile share increases in higher soil density. However, this is not the case in non-displacement piled raft and load sharing is independent of soil density in working loads.IntroductionThe piled raft foundation is a combination of shallow and deep foundation which transfers the superstructure load to the soil by a complex soilstructure interaction. The interacting mechanism among foundation elements and their surrounding soil is illustrated schematically in Figure 1 and could be classified into two categories: (1) pile-soil-pile and (2) pile-soil-raft. The pile-soil-pile interaction is the same as the free standing pile group and is a function of pile spacing and pile installation method. Pile-soil-raft interaction, which only involves in piled raft foundation design, could be affected by: the length, spacing, and roughness of the pile, the rigidity and dimension of the cap, soil condition, and the pile installation method. Pile-soil-raft interaction could have favourable and unfavourable effects on bearing capacity and settlement, respectively. The pressure between the cap and the soil favourably increases the horizontal stress on the pile shaft and consequently increase the shaft resistance. Whereas, this pressure induces negative skin friction on the piles which increases the settlement. The pile-soil-raft interaction mainly controls the load sharing mechanism of piled raft foundation when pile spacing (S) is more than 3.5dp."

Jan 1, 2017

By William Siegel

Kleinfelder provided foundation analysis and design for an expansion to a cement plant in Florence, Colorado. The expansion was a conversion from a horizontal wet process to a vertical dry process, and resulted in the construction of a number of structures with heavy foundation loads. [ ] The field investigation identified old fill and saturated sands and gravels above a shale/limestone bedrock environment. Based upon the anticipated loading, drilled piers socketed into bedrock were recommended. The structures were constructed in accordance with the design recommendations.

Jan 1, 2007