Engineers and Specifiers

Ductile Iron Pile Advantages:

Driven deep foundation solutions for difficult sites often with constrained access or low headroom.
A proven, 40-year+ track record of successful projects with load testing to deliver high-confidence in designs.
Range of capacities to develop efficient and straight-forward designs.
Enhanced value through cost and schedule savings compared with drilled micropiles and helical piles.
Low-vibration construction process won’t expose structures to unsafe ground motions.
Plug and Drive joint for rapid field connections with full moment capacity connection
Up-front feasibility assistance from DuroTerra engineers helps determine the best-value option for the design team.
Having a choice of geotechnical contractors provides the best-value option to work within project budgets.

FOUNDATION SELECTION:

Engineers have many options to consider when specifying and designing deep foundations. Foundation selection is based on factors, including subsurface conditions, loading conditions, site access, and grading, foundation elevations, and overhead clearances / adjacent structures. Additional factors include local practice, availability of specialty contractors, cost, and schedule needs for deep foundation construction. The Ductile Iron Pile system is a versatile, low-vibration piling solution that offers a high-value alternative for projects that normally require micropiles, helical piles, or other deep foundations on sites with a variety of these practical challenges.

DESIGN:

With design capacities ranging from 25 to more than 100 tons, Ductile Iron Piles offer a versatile pile option for a wide range of loading conditions. Compared with micropiles, Ductile Iron Piles often provide similar capacities but with a faster, easier and safer installation that leads to cost and schedule savings. Compared with helical piles, Ductile Iron Piles are often used to provide greater pile capacities to reduce pile quantities while also limiting installation risks commonly associated with helical piles including shallow terminations in fill, “spinning out” at transitions between soft and hard layers, and not achieving the anticipated torque in the bearing layer resulting in much longer pile lengths.

INSTALLATION:

Ductile Iron Piles also provide other installation advantages. For instance, peak particle velocities from the low-vibration installation process are typically between 0.25 and 1.0 ips – much less than the threshold for damage of structures, even when installations are immediately adjacent to or inside existing structures. Highly-efficient installations can occur with at least 18-feet of vertical headroom, allowing new deep foundations to be constructed inside existing high-bay structures – at a much faster rate than micropiles.

RESOURCES:

With over 40 years of international experience and load testing, designers have confidence in designing their foundations with Ductile Iron Piles. And DuroTerra’s in-house geotechnical and structural engineers are available to assist project teams throughout the process with Ductile Iron Pile education sessions, project feasibility assessments, specification development, contractor selection, and design/construction support. The following links provide helpful resources or contact us for more specific questions or information.