Ductile Iron Piles – Reducing risk above and below the ground
During Construction Safety Week earlier this month, companies throughout the industry took time to spotlight the importance of health and safety. While Construction Safety Week helps reinforce the role of safety, the focus on safety isn’t just limited to one particular week. Safety is a full-time job. And for the Ductile Iron Pile (DIP) system, it’s a big part of our core benefits – FAST. SIMPLE. SAFE.® And without safety, none of the other advantages amount to anything.
When compared with many other deep foundation systems, the DIP system installed with small-footprint construction equipment offers important safety benefits. The modular nature of the 5-meter-long pile sections allows the use of very stable medium-sized excavators equipped with percussion hammers to install piles that extend to depths of 50, 100 or even 150 ft or more depending on the project need. That’s compared to a large vertical mast piling rig or crane with leads that require significant focus on working platforms for rig stability and extreme care when hoisting large piling and/or drill tooling. Substantially smaller overhead materials and equipment result in a safer work area for the entire jobsite. The low-vibration driving process also provides a straightforward and simple operation that eliminates the need for rotating or drilling processes associated with helical piles or complicated drilled micropiles.
From an engineering and performance perspective, the SAFETY associated with the system is proven by the vast experience gained on projects throughout many parts of the world. Extensive load testing and successful performance on projects across the United States and Canada illustrates that the performance of the system is safe and reliable.
If you’d like to evaluate whether the Fast. Simple. Safe.® system can offer benefits on your project or would like more information about the system, please reach out to us today.
PROJECT EXPERIENCE – VIRGINIA PLACER
Real estate is at a premium in the mountain town of Telluride, CO, so land for site development is hard to come by. The project consisted of construction of a new 3-story multifamily residential project with only a 6,000 sq ft footprint on a limited access site in mountainous terrain. With very soft to stiff clay and silt extending up to 45 feet, a deep foundation solution was planned for the project. Rock elevations were highly variable and ranged from 49 to 79 feet in the borings. Original plans called for driven steel HP-12×53 piles with capacities of 70 kips. Keller North America recognized the challenges of setting up a traditional driven pile operation on the tight site with limited laydown areas and challenges with the varying length piles (i.e. cut-offs, splicing, wasted material). Instead, the project team turned to a Ductile Iron Pile alternative to match the pile capacity on a 1:1 basis using a Series 118/9.0 pile. All piles were driven to achieve “set” on bedrock. Following successful load testing, the 44 piles were driven in only a few days in wet & snowy conditions ahead of winter. In addition to the benefits associated with deep, variable rock, the DIPs provided a solution to safely accommodate the constrained, remote site. For more information, check out the project summary.
PROJECT EXPERIENCE – CANDLEWOOD SUITES
Construction of an 8-story hotel near the Dunkin’ Donuts Park Baseball Stadium required deep foundations to provide support at the site characterized by undocumented fill and compressible silt over rock. The project was initially specified for 100-ton steel H-piles to support the column loads ranging from 400 to 800 kips. With winter construction approaching, a Ductile Iron Pile alternative was selected by the project team to save both cost and time to help accelerate foundation construction. A Series 170/9.0 Ductile Iron Pile with a #9 Grade 75 threadbar bar was designed to provide a 100 ton compression capacity to match the H-piles on a 1:1 basis. All piles were driven to achieve “set” on rock at depths on the order of 30 to 40 feet. In isolated locations requiring up to 18 tons of tension resistance, piles were installed with oversized 270 mm diameter grout shoes to develop frictional capacity from a 10.5-inch diameter grouted displacement pile. Compression load testing performed to 400 kips showed less than 1 inch of deflection at the maximum test load. The use of the DIPs resulted in a low vibration installation to limit damage to nearby structures and reduced safety concerns associated with larger piling equipment. For more information, check out the project summary.
