DuroTerra Dialogue: Micropiles Made Simple
Micropiles Made Simple.
Micropiles fill a niche in geotechnical construction to address sites with challenges including vibration concerns, overhead clearance restrictions and heavily-obstructed conditions. But you often hear words like complicated, expensive, slow, messy, dangerous associated with micropile installations.
Did you know that Ductile Iron Piles (DIPs) are being used more and more by project teams to provide a simpler alternative to drilled micropiles? The low vibration driven Ductile Iron Pile system features the following advantages:
- Rapid Installations – Installation rates that are typically at least 2 to 3 times faster than micropiles and can exceed 1,000+ ft/day.
- Lower Price – Cost savings on many projects in the range of 25 to 50% over traditional drilled micropiles.
- Low Vibrations – DIP hammers generate high frequency percussion energy with vibrations typically less than 1 inch/second to allow installations adjacent to or inside of existing structures.
- Low Overhead Clearance – Excavator-mounted hammer and modular pile set-up needs as little as 18 feet of overhead clearance.
- Safe, Clean and Easy – Installations are easy, clean and safe with limited moving mechanical parts and controlled grouting operations.
Interested in learning more? Check out the following recent projects where DIPs were used as an alternate to micropiles. If you have additional questions or would like to evaluate feasibility for your micropile project – Contact Us Here
Relevant projects
Low Vibration Ductile Iron Piles driven to 90 feet
Twenty feet of access combined with compressible soils to 90 ft. Sound challenging? Ductile Iron Piles (DIPs) made it simple. Renovations to the 7-story Logan Hotel in downtown Omaha required construction of a new stair/elevator tower that needed to be squeezed in a 20-foot wide area between the existing North and South wings of the hotel. Ductile Iron Piles were driven to rock which was more than 80 feet below grade. The DIP system provided cost and schedule savings by replacing the original plan for micropiles with a 40 ton capacity driven Ductile Iron Pile.
Sonic predrilling and Ductile Iron Piles save substantial time and money by replacing micropiles
Debris-laden fill underlain by compressible marine clay down to rock at 75 feet. Sound challenging? Ductile Iron Piles made it simple….well mostly. Foundation support on sites with buried concrete foundations, slabs, and other large debris often require micropiles to drill through the obstructions. Penetrating the urban fill was only part of the challenge at the Alta XMBLY project near Boston, MA. With rock encountered at depths between 70 and 80 feet below grade, micropiles socketed into rock were going to be a slow and expensive process. The project team arrived at a creative solution using 85-ton capacity Ductile Iron Piles. Pile locations were predrilled with a sonic drill rig to penetrate the urban fill and then DIPs were rapidly driven to achieve capacity on rock. See how the solution provided reliable performance while significantly shortening schedules and reducing foundation costs.
