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THE EFFECT OF PILE DRIVING ON SOIL AND ADJACENT STRUCTURE

RESPONSE-NUMERICAL STUDY

Conference Paper · December 2016

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 THE NINTH AlEXANDRIA INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
STRUCTURAL AND GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING

THE EFFECT OF PILE DRIVING ON SOIL AND ADJACENT

STRUCURE RESPONSE-NUMERICAL STUDY

M. SHAHEIN 1, A. FAROUK2, M. RAMADAN3

1
Prof. of Geotechnical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University, Egypt
E-mail: marawan.shahin@f-eng.tanta.edu.eg
2
Assoc. Prof. at Structural Eng. Department, Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University, Egypt
E-mail: drfarouk@yahoo.com
3
A Researcher at Structural Eng. Department, Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University
E-mail: mohammed_ramadan_2010@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

Construction and industrial dynamic sources can produce environmental vibration

problems for the surrounding soils and adjacent structures. High vibrations and
vibration-induced settlements could cause disturbance to sensitive devices inside
buildings and even be the cause of structural damage and foundation failure. The
main objectives of the present research are to study the effect of construction born
vibration through pile driving technique on the response of surrounding soil and
the adjacent structure response. The pile driving vibration-induced peak particle
velocity (PPV) of the soil surrounding the construction vibration environment was
investigated. A series of Axisymmetric finite element analysis using Plaxis 8.2
dynamic module were run on single pile installed using driving technique
(hammer type). The peak particle velocity was calculated for pile installations by
various hydraulic hammers weights considering both clay and sand deposits with
various stiffnesses. The acceleration versus time history of the pile driving
vibration obtained by the Finite element models were used as input in another
module using SAP2000 V.14 to simulate the structure model that is affected by
such dynamic effect. This study analyzes the PPV of the propagated waves in the
ground with distance from the construction from source of vibration. The
structural model is used to investigate the influence of pile driving induced
vibration on the adjacent structures in the form of displacement.
Keywords: Clay, Sand, Pile Installation, Vibrations, PPV, finite element, damage.

INTRODUCTION

Construction vibration through soil can cause significant damage to surrounding structures.
Human activity can generate soil vibration with variation in intensity, which mainly depends upon
the source of vibration. Pile driving currently becomes one of the main sources of vibration of the
human activities. The construction and retrofit of bridges and retaining walls often includes
1
driving of piles or sheet piles for foundation support or earth retention. Pile-driving is performed
typically by use of impact or vibratory hammers. This process induces vibrations into the ground
which can be transmitted to nearby structures. The vibration waves may cause potential damage of
existing building induced by vibration source. More specifically, these vibrations can cause ground
settlements and deformations that may lead to differential settlements of foundations and
deformations or cracking in the structures. Monitoring and control of construction vibrations were
studied by a number of researchers e.g. Attewell and Farmer1, Dowding2, Heckman & Hagerty3,
Massarsch4, Mayne5, Richart et al6, Svinkin7, Clough & Chameau8 and Wiss9. Woods10 used
relationship between energy of source "W" and surface distance "D". The velocity "v" is calculated
as (D/W0.5)-n where the value of 'n' yields a slope in a log-log plot. Such expression facilitates the
calculation of the peak particle velocity (PPV) of ground vibrations as a function of the source
velocity. Svinkin7, Mayne5 suggested for dynamic compaction a relationship between the impact
velocity of a free falling weight and PPV of ground vibrations as PPV= 0.2(2gH) 0.5 (D/r0)-1.7 where
g = ground acceleration constant, H = falling height, D/r0 = distance normalized to the weight
radius. In this paper, the effect of pile driving on both soil and adjacent structure response are
investigated using numerical modeling technique. The effects of soil stiffness and hammer weight
on PPV are also investigated at different clay and sand properties.
The degree of damage due to PPV was classified by Sutherland and McIver11. They reported that a
PPV of 0.5mm/s can only disturb the building occupants while at a PPV 5mm/s the building could
be damaged. The impact of construction vibrations induced by different sources is also assessed by
Dowding5. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO,
1990) also specify the maximum vibration levels for preventing damage to structures from
construction or maintenance activities. Dowding5 suggested a radius of 400 ft (122m) of
construction activities or out to a distance at which vibrations of 0.08 in/s occur. Kaminetzky12
mentioned an interesting case with building settlement developed at a distance of about 1000 ft
away from a pile driving site. Woods10 considered distances of as much as 1300 feet to be surveyed
to identify settlement damage hazard.

FINITE ELEMENT METHOD AND ANALYSIS

Finite element analyses of pile driving are carried out using Plaxis 8.2 2D dynamic version. A set
of general fixities to the boundary conditions of the problem are considered to be imposed
automatically by Plaxis. The mesh was generated and refined twice to improve the accuracy of the
results. For impact hummers the analysis was based on three phase's plastic (staged construction)
and two phases for dynamic analysis (total multipliers). The dimensions of the soil model were also
taken according to Petřík et al13. The soil and the pile with the hammer weight have been modeled
as shown in Figure 1.
In order to study the effect of pile driving on adjacent structures. The numerical program SAP2000
V.14 was used to simulate an adjacent structure by modeling a skeleton structure consists of
beams, columns, slabs and springs that represents the soil subgrade reactions as shown in Figure 2.
The output of Plaxis in the form of acceleration induced time history was used as an input in the
SAP model to study the effect of driving induced waves which affect not only on the soil
underneath the structure but also directly to the structure.

2
 Soil

Figure.1 Plaxis model for soil problem under investigation.

a) 3D skeleton of the 6 floor building b) Plan of the structure.

Figure 2. SAP 3D model for the structure adjacent to the driving source

DESCRIPTION OF THE MODEL

The different parameters for Plaxis model were illustrated as shown in Table.1. "Mohr Columb"
undrained model was used for modeling clay while "hardening soil" for modeling sand. The pile in
Plaxis was modeled as a linear elastic non porous. The pile has a circular cross section with a
diameter of 0.4 m and a length of 20m. For simulating the behavior of reinforced concrete, having
Poisson’s ratio "ν" of 0.1, unit weight "c " of 25 kN/m3 and modulus of elasticity of 22e6.
The SAP model simulates a residential building (skeleton) consists of 6 floors and supported by
isolated footings. The building had footprint of 10mx10m. The slabs were 0.12 m in thickness. The
external columns had 0.3mx0.6m in cross section. The internal column had 0.3mx0.9m in cross
section. The beams had dimensions of 0.25mx0.50 m in cross section. The footings are rectangular
in shape. The external footings were 2.5 m in width and 3.5m in length, while the internal footing
was 3m in width and 4m in length. A live load of 2kN/m2 was considered.

3
 Table 1. The different parameters used in the models in this research:

Parameter Clay1 Clay2 Clay3 Sand1 Sand2 Sand3 Pile Units

unsat 14 16 18 17 18 20 25 kN/m3
sat 16 18 20 19 20 22 ‫ـــــ‬ kN/m3
Eref 5000 8000 16000 25000 33000 40000 106×22 kN/m2
Eoed ‫ـــــ‬ 10‫ـــــ‬4× ‫ـــــ‬ 25000 33000 40000 ‫ـــــ‬ kN/m2
M ‫ـــــ‬ ‫ـــــ‬ ‫ـــــ‬ 0.5 0.5 0.5 ‫ـــــ‬ ‫ـــــ‬
Eur ‫ـــــ‬ ‫ـــــ‬ ‫ـــــ‬ 75000 99000 120000 ‫ـــــ‬ kN/m2
 0.2 0.32 0.35 0.3 0.33 0.35 0.1 ‫ـــــ‬
Cu 25 40 80 ‫ـــــ‬ ‫ـــــ‬ ‫ـــــ‬ ‫ـــــ‬ kN/m2
 ‫ـــــ‬ ‫ـــــ‬ ‫ـــــ‬ 30 35 45 ‫ـــــ‬ ̊
 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 ‫ـــــ‬ ̊
Rinter 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.67 0.67 0.67 ‫ـــــ‬ ‫ـــــ‬

ANALYSIS PROCEDURE AND STUDIED PARAMETERS

Table 2. Shows a series of the studied models that were run for the problem under investigation.
Table 2: Summary of the series which are under investigation (Lpile: pile length & Load: Driving Hammer).
Constant parameters Variable parameters
Lpile=20m , Load=10ton E = 5000 , 8000 , 16000 kN/m2
Lpile=20m , Load=10ton E = 25000 , 33000 , 40000 kN/m2
2
Lpile=20m , E= 5000 kN/m Load=15 ton , Load=20ton
2
Lpile=20m , E = 25000 kN/m Load=15 ton , Load=20ton

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Twenty runs are carried out in order to investigate the effect of different parameters on the
soil and the adjacent structure. The output of Plaxis is in the form of acceleration time history
beside the Peak Particle Velocity (PPV) due to the vibration. The acceleration time history is used
to feed the SAP model.
1. Effect of soil stiffness on PPV.
Figures 3 and 4 show the variation of horizontal and vertical components, respectively, of PPV
with distance from driving source in clay with different stiffness. As expected, the velocity
decreases with the increase in distance from driving source. In Figures 3 and 4 show that both
components of the PPV increase with the increase in the stiffness of the clay. The increase in the
vertical component of PPV with the increase in stiffness is more pronounced than that observed in
the horizontal component of PPV.
The variation of both components of PPV is illustrated in Figures 5 and 6 for sand with different
stiffness. The trends observed in clay are similar to those observed in sand. The difference in
numbers of the PPV is thought to be due to the difference in stiffness between the clay and the
sand.

4
 2. Effect of hammer weight on PPV
The effect of driving hammer weight on PPV on both clay and sand is also investigated as shown
in Figures 7 and 8. In general, the increase in hammer weight increases PPV in both clay and sand.
The observed trend could be explained by the fact that the increase in hammer weight increases the
input energy to the pile=ground system thus higher born vibration levels as reflected in PPV. The
difference in stiffness between clay and sand influences the magnitudes of PPV. Such difference
could be partly explained by the level of damping in clay as compared to sand. Therefore, the PPV
values in sand are higher than those developed in clay. It is further noticed that the increase in
PPV with the increase in hummer weight is more pronounced in sand as compared in clay.

Figure 3. Maximum horizontal velocities in clay. Figure 4. Maximum vertical velocities in clay.

Figure 5. Maximum horizontal velocities in sand. Figure 6. Maximum vertical velocities in sand.

3. 7.Effect
Figure of in
Velocity pile
claydriving on thehammers.
with different adjacent structure
Figure 8. Velocity in sand with different hammers.

5
The horizontal acceleration time history due to pile driving obtained from Plaxis dynamic analysis
described above (e.g. see Fig. 9) is used as an input for the 3D SAP structural analysis model (Fig.
2). The 6 floor structure in the SAP model is vibrated using the acceleration time history of the
vibration born from pile driving. The adopted maximum horizontal accelerations from Plaxis
dynamic models at various distances from the driving source are plotted in Figure 10 for both cases
of clay and sand surrounding soils.

2g

1g
Acceleration, g

-1g

-2g
0 1 2 3 4 5
Time, sec
Figure 9. Horizontal acceleration time history of the born vibration due to pile driving 3m away
from the source as obtained from the Finite Element model (g=9.81 m/s2)
Maximum Horizontal Acceleration,g (m/s2)

2.5

Clay, E=5000 kN/m2 Sand, E=25000 kN/m2

2 1.96 1.93

Lpile 20m
1.5 Hammer weight 10ton
1.4 1.35
Values of acceleration relative to (g)
1.1
1
0.85
0.73
0.73 0.64
0.5 0.47 0.431
0.45
0.26 0.2
0.122 0.09
0.09 0.071 0.061
0 0.03

3 6 9 12 15 19 25 30 37 46
Distance from the driving source

Figure 10. Maximum horizontal accelerations due to pile driving in clay and sand (g=9.81 m/s2)

The vertical displacement resulted from the structural vibration obtained from SAP model is use as
a possible cause of damage that could occur to the structure. The vibration induced vertical
displacements at the corner of a structure at point (1) (Figure 2b) in the cases of clay (E=5 MPa)
and sand (E=25 MPa) are shown in Figures 11 and 12, respectively. In general, the magnitudes of
the vertical displacement in sand is higher than that in clay. The difference could be related to
difference in stiffness. The maximum distances at which the vibration induced displacement ecome
less than 5 mm are in the cases of clay and sand are 46 m and 10 m, respectively.

6
 70
62.09
60
Vertical Deformation (mm) SAP Values

50 Lpile 20m
43.71 Hammer weight 10ton
40 E 5000 kN/m^2 , Clay Soil
31.68
30

20 20.21
16.5
13.23
10.79
10 7.65
5.44
2.96
0
3 6 9 12 15 19 25 30 37 46

Distance from the driving source (m)

Figure 11. The vertical displacement at different distance from the source in clay

160
Vertical Deformation (mm)

140 137.55 SAP Values

120 Lpile 20m

112.657
Hammer weight 10ton
100 E 25000 kN/m^2 , Sand Soil
89.3
80
65.11
60
43.58
40
23.8
20
10.124 8.63 4.987 2.674
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Distance from the driving source (m)

Figure 12. The vertical displacement at different distance from the source in sand

The maximum allowable vertical displacement of 25 mm can be taken as criteria to prevent

possible damage to the structure. According to the data in Figures 11 and 12, the minimum
distances at which such criteria is violated in the clay and sand cases are 11m and 6m, respectively.
There are many structural damage criteria in the literature for example Boscardin and Cording
(1989) and Burland (1995). Using the data presented in this paper to evaluate the possible
structural damage criteria as compared to vibration induced maximum peak particle velocity that
criteria available in literature and Egyptian Code of Practice shall be the topic of future
publication.

CONCLUSIONS

The effect of pile driving on the lateral behavior of soil and the adjacent structure was investigated
using numerical modeling. Based on the numerical investigations carried out on the model and the
data presented in this paper, the following main conclusions are drawn:
1) The decrease in PPV with distance from pile driving source is confirmed by
the analysis.
2) The PPV of the born vibrations increases with the increase of the stiffness of
surrounding soils.
3) Driving hammer weight increases the levels of PPV in the surrounding soil
due to the increase of the energy level of the vibration source.

7
 4) Adopting the maximum allowable vertical displacement of 25 mm as a criteria
limit the damage of the structure in the example shown in the paper resulted in
minimum distance of driving in sand and clay as 11m and 6 m, respectively.
5) The methodology presented in this paper can be used to evaluate the limiting
vibration induced PPV in the Egyptian Code of Practice and/or in the international
standards.

REFERENCES

1. Attewell, P.B. and Farmer, I.W. "Attenuation of ground vibrations from piles. Ground
Engineering", 1973, Vol. 6(4), pp. 26-29.
2. Boscardin, M., & Cording, E. (1989). Building response to excavation-induced
settlement. Journal of Geotech. Engineering, ASCE, 115(1) , 1-21.
3. Burland, J. (1995). Assessment of risk of damage to buildings due to tunnelling and
excavation. In: 1st Int. Conf. on Earthquake Geotech. Engineering, IS. Tokyo.
4. Dowding, C.H., "Construction Vibrations. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River", 1996.
5. Heckman, w. s. and D. J. Hagerty, "Vibrations Associated With Pile Driving," Journal of
the Construction Division, 1978, ASCE, Vol. 4, No. C04, pp. 385-394.
6. Cenek, P.D., Sutherland, A.J. and McIver, I.R, "Ground Vibration from Road
Construction, 2012, NZ Transport Agency Research Report 485, downloadable from:
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/research/reports/485/index.html.
7. Clough, G.W. and Chameau, J.L," Measured Effects of Vibratory Sheet pile Driving",
1980, Journal of Geotechnical Engineering Division, ASCE, Vol. 106, No. GT10, pp.
1081-1099.
8. Kaminetzky, D., "Design and construction failures: lessons from forensic investigations:
1991, McGraw-Hili Inc., New York, N.Y.
9. Massarch.K.R, "Settlement and damage caused by construction-induced vibration, 2000.
10. Mayne, P.W, "Ground vibrations during dynamic compaction", 1985.
11. Richart, F.E. Jr., Woods, R.D., Hall, J.R. Jr, "Vibrations of Soils of Foundations, 1970,
Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, U.S.A. 414 p. ISBN-10 0139417168.
12. Petřík, T., Hrubešová, E. and Lednická, M." A comparison of numerical models results
with in-situ measurement of ground vibrations caused by sheet pile driving, 2012, Acta
Geodyn. Geomater., Vol. 9, No. 2 (166), pp. 165–171.
13. Svinkin, M.R, "Soil and structure vibrations from construction and industrial sources,
2008, Proc. of the 6th Int. Conf. on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering, 11-16
August, Arlington, VA, U.S.A. OSP8, 14 p.
14. Wiss, J.F.(1981) "Construction vibrations: state of the art"
15. Woods, "Dynamic effects of pile installation on adjacent structures", 1997.

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