oac 'es:son sos:-crau:ec

microoiesin onconCay
by D. A. JONES, BTech, CEng, MICE at M. J. TURNER*, MSc, CEng, MICE, FGS

Introduction becoming blue-grey, silty clay. o '. u ..'' Q O '

'.,o
''' o(
. O

GEWI PILES are small diameter micro-

piles, typically between 100 and 150mm
diameter, with a main load-carrying mem-
The site investigation report for the
nearby A40 (M) Western Avenue Exten-
sion was kindly made available by the
(r.

..
0 '

r,> . . . . -
ber consisting of a 50mm diameter high Greater London Council, and one of the Anchor nut .
yield steel bar surrounded by cement grout. boreholes was only 40m away from the ~ (G 0 O
D
The Gewi pile was developed by Dyc- test-pile area. CI o O (G p
'D (
kerhoff and Widman in 1972, from the The measured values of the undrained O
G
0
idea that ground anchor techniques could shear strength are plotted against depth o ' 0 O GG

be used to form micro-piles with working below ground level in Fig. 2 for several of '0 O.
OG
0 (

loads of up to 50 tonnes. The system was the nearby site investigation boreholes,
and the results compare'ell
O
developed around their 50mm diameter with those O D O G O D
Grouting line
Gewi steel reinforcing bar, which has a obtained by Skempton (1959) for a num- O
V
O
o I
patented thread-like deformation rolled on- ber of London Clay sites in the London o 0
O

O
to the bar during manufacture. The use of area. 'O
0
this "thread-bar" enables short lengths to The groundconditions encountered o 0 D
'

be coupled together to form piles of any 0

during the drilling of the micro-piles were O
required length and to allow working in as expected from the available ground in- O
O - '
O
V
G
O
restricted headroom, It also allows the pile formation. The clay changed from wea- .O
G O
O O
to be designed to withstand both tensile thered brown to the typical blue-grey col- 0 . O D.
.O

and compressive loads. our of unweathered London Clay at about

The steel core assembly can also incor- 11m below ground level.
porate a post-grouting system of valves G
G O
GI O

and pipes which, in weak soils, allows ad- '

ditional quantities of cement grout to be Design Lock nut
O

injected several hours after installation. The Gewi pile is a friction pile, transfer-
Such post-grouting operations, as instan- ring the great bulk of its load by shaft O O

friction. Conventional pile design techni- D.

ced by Ostermayer (1975), allow higher 'oupler:
load-carrying capacities to be attained. ques for clays determine the ultimate shaft
friction by multiplying the undrained shear
O
O
Fig. 1 illustrates a typical Gewi pile with
post-grouting valves. strength of the clay by a factor, known as
One feature of such post-grouted piles, the "Alpha" value. For London Clay this O
value typically varies from 0.3 for large
O O
however, is that at the present state of
the art the design is mainly empirical. It is diameter bored piles to 0.45 for standard D
O
D

known that the use of post-grouting will bored piles up to about 0.7 for driven 0 O

increase the load-carrying capacity of the piles. For cement-grouted ground anchors O
D

pile, but it is more difficult to predict the the Alpha value is typically taken be- Spacer
tween 0.3 and 0.35 (Littlejohn, 1970). grout valve
magnitude of such an increase. In addition, G D

the work on clay soils cited by Ostermayer Based upon the work of Ostermayer
0
has tended to be based upon harder and (1975) the use of post-grouting techniques D

less plastic clays then those such as the could be expected to increase the load- G O
O(
London Clay of the south-east of England. carrying capacity of the Gewi pile, and, in
Cement grout
When Ground Anchors Ltd. became the broad terms, this could be expressed by IO
O
I
UK licensees of the Gewi pile system, an increase in the Alpha value. From Oster- 0
mayer, on the basis of a stiff to very stiff c
CD
O
therefore, it was decided to carry out a
clay of medium to high plasticity, the ulti- .0
short test pile programme in typical Lon- IO
O 0 0 0
don Clay, in order to verify predictions mate skin friction could be expected to u
o(O
of the load-carrying capacity of the piles increase by a factor of two or more, which 0
in such a material. With the permission of can be expressed as a similar increase in Spacer
O

the British Railways Board, a site was the Alpha value. If it is assumed that Alpha 0 D

made available in West London which was would initially lie between 0.3 and 0.45 0

underlain from the surface by London and that post-grouting could be expected
Clay, to increase this by a factor of 2.0, then O O

the Alpha value for a post-grouted Gewi O

pile could reasonably be predicted to lie

'r
The site Post-grouted
The site was located some 200m west between 0.6 and 0.9. section
of Westbourne Park Station, alongside the Typically, in continental practice, a O D

O
main Western Region railway line from maximum post-grouted length of around '
O
O
Paddington Station and immediately north 7m has been adopted for Gewi piles.
of the elevated portion of the A40 (M) However, assuming that the post-grouted 0
O
'G
motorway. zone is a minimum of Sm below the ground O
O
0
surface, the expected ultimate load-carry- O
D .
—, Reversai tube
O
ing capacity of such a 12m micro-pile
Ground conditions
Beneath a surface layer of fill approxi- would only have been between 30 and 45
mately 1m thick, the site was underlain
tonnes for the anticipated ground condi- O . 0 Gewi threadbar
by London Clay, consisting of firm, be-
tions at the test site. Increasing the post- O
'ia 50mm
coming stiff to very stiff, fissured, brogan grouted length to 14m (i.e. a 19m long O. O
pile), though outside continental practice, (s
O

0
would correspondingly increase the calcul- 0
~

able ultimate capacity of the pile to bet- O O

*Both authors, at the t'me of writing this article,
were with Ground Anchors Ltd„35a High Street.
Iver, Bucks. SLO BND. Mr. Turner has sub-
sequently joined Drillstress Ltd., pO Box 55,
Bolton, Lance., BL2 4JT, as Technical D:rector.
ween 67 and 100 tonnes. Since the 50mm
Gewi steel thread-bar is capable of with- Fig. 1. Typical Gewi pile with post-
standing such an ultimate design load, it grouting facilities
September, 1980 47
was decided therefore to construct and Undrained shear strength, kN/m'00

test some Gewi piles with longer post- 100 300 400
grouted lengths than usual, in order to
investigate the performance of the system
in such a situation,

Installation and construction Key

A total of nine Gewi piles were in- aa Results for BH18
stalled at the site. Three were installed to nearest the test site
a depth of -19m, three were 12m long and
the remaining three were 9m long, ~ Results for
The holes were drilled by 150mm dia. adjacent boreho les
continuous ffight augers using a standard
anchor drilling rig (Fig. 3). No casing was
required for any of the holes.
Secondary grouting valves were installed
over the lower portion of each pile; the E
upper Sm of each pile in each case was 10
not secondary grouted. Various config-
urations of secondary grouting valves were c
tried, but no single configuration seemed 0
to significantly affect the load-carrying
capacity of the pile. 0
The Gewi steel bars were supplied to
site in 6m lengths, a practical size for c 15
man-handling. o.
Each thread-bar, complete with secon- 0
dary grouting system and spacers as nec-
essary, was fabricated on site and homed
into the borehole using a small mobile
crane (Fig. 4), Primary grout, consisting
of neat sulphate-resisting cement was 20
then pumped to the bottom of the bore-
hole through a tremie tube.
Some 24 hours after installation, after
the primary grout had set, secondary
grouting was carried out. Break-out pres- Typical strength/depth
sures through the grouting valves were relationship in London
Clay laher Skemptoo, 1959, Fig.
normally some 10-15 bars, and typically
400kg of secondary grout was injected in 25
a single phase. It was found that injecting
significantly higher quantities than this
caused ground heave around the injected
pile. Fig. 2. Undrained shear strength: depth relationship for test site
On one of the piles a tertiary grouting
operation was carried out at a later stage,
but before testing. The results were too
few to be conclusive in demonstrating a
higher load-carrying capacity, but it has
been reported that such regrouting opera-
tions have resulted in increased load-
carrying capacities (e.g. Herbst, 1979).

Testing
Each micro-pile was tested by a verti-
cally applied compressive load using a
Dywidag hydraulic jack assembly in con-
junction with a load cell. The reaction
force was supplied by a test beam assem-
bly restrained by pre-tensioned ground an-
chors. The testing assembly is shown in
Fig. 5.
Tests took place not less than 28 days
after installation.
Both maintained-load testing and con-
stant-rate-of-penetration (CRP) test met-
hods were used, as outlined in CP2004 ("
(1972). After the maintained load tests
had been taken to a maximum specified j,l
value, CRP tests were carried out.
Typical load-settlement curves for each I

of the three pile lengths are illustrated in

Fig. 6, I

Discussion of results
(a) Ultimate carrying capacity
.Als ~;:.;:
'% gw*'' '-

It was established that none of the piles I

had failed at the maximum loads imposed 14'"

by the maintained load tests.

With regard to the CRP tests, some of
the criteria listed by Tomlinson (1977) II I';~@~
for defining failure loads, which were con-
sidered to be applicable to the present
a.:- alee,'. ~
tests, are as follows:
(i) The load at which settlement contin- Fig, 3, Drilling for Gewi pileinstallation
48 Ground Engineering
Fig. 4. Homing the 50mm thread-bar Fig. 5. Load-testing assembly for piles

ues to increase without any further Table I summarises the assigned failure (b) Alpha factor
increase of load, loads for each of the pile lengths installed, The Alpha values obtained from back-
(ii) The load producing a gross settle- using the above failure criteria. calculation of the results of the present
ment of 10% of the least pile width series of tests for post-grouted Gewi piles
(i.e. 15mm), TABLE I. FAILURE LOADS OF GEWI in London Clay are summarised in Table
(iii) The load beyond which there is an PILES IN LONDON CLAY II, Whilst the values should be used with
increase in gross settlement dispro- some care at this stage, it is possible to
Pile length, Assigned failure conclude that the shorter the pile or the
portionate to the increase in load, and
Pile No. m load,tonnes weaker the soil, the higher the Alpha value
(iv) The load indicated by the intersec-
tion of tangents drawn through the GP 3 9.0 42.5 (i.e. the greater the relative increase in
initial flatter portion of the gross set- load-carrying capacity) for a post-grouted
tlement curve and the steeper flatter
GP 6 9.0 54 micro pile.
portion of the same curve, GP 9 9.0 78.5 Table II shows that a minimum value
From examination of the test results, it GP 2 12.0 60 for the Alpha factor for the 14m post-
was considered that the "tangent intersec- grouted section of the 19m piles is be-
tion" method of failure determination
GP 5 12.0 58 tween 0.6 and 0.8. For the shorter piles
(method iv above) gave a better defini- GP 8 12.0 95 with post-grouted lengths of between
tion of failure for the shorter piles, whilst GP 1 19.0 69 4m and 7m, Alpha rises to between 1.2
the "gross settlement of 15mm" (method and 2.1. Such values represent a design
GP 4 19.0 90 load-carrying capacity two or three times
ii) was better for the longer piles.
The reason for this is in the high elas- GP 7 19.0 Not reached that of comparable micro-piles.
ticity of the piles themselves. With the (jack failure) (c) Working loads at the test pile site
shorter length of pile the elastic deforma- Tomlinson (1977) has proposed that,
tion of the pile is quite small by compari- Fig. 7 illustrates the effect of variation based upon a large number of tests on all
son with the strain at the pile/soil inter- of the length of the Gewi pile compared types of small to medium diameter piles,
face. As the pile gets longer, however, and with their assigned ultimate capacities. It the settlement under working load will not
loads get higher, the elastic shortening of can be seen that, as would be expected, exceed 10mm if the safety factor to the
the pile becomes increasingly important the longer piles generally give a higher calculated ultimate resistance of the pile
rather than a strict failure at the pile soil ultimate capacity than the shorter ones, is not lower than 2.5. Based upon this
interface. but with a degree of diminishing returns. criterion the Gewi piles constructed at the

TABLE II. ALPHA VALUES FOR POST-GROUTED GEWI PILES TABLE III. MINIMUM RECOMMENDED WORKING LOAD FOR
DERIVED FROM TEST PILES 150MM GEWI PILES AT TEST PILE SITE
transfer Depth below Average undrained Derived
length, ground level, cohesion of post- Alpha Pile length, Minimum recommended Gross settlement at
grouted soil,
N/m'-'oad
value m working load, tonnes working load, mm
k

5 —9 115 1.6 to 2.1 17.0 1-1.5

5 — 12 125 1.2 to 2.1 12 23.0 3.0
14 5 — 19 155 0.6 to 0.8 19 27.6 3.5 —4.5

September, 1980 51
 Settlement of pile head, mm Settlement ot pile Itead, mm
3 4 5 6 7 8 3 4
1 2 5 6 7 8
0

10

o
20

o.
0 o
30 0
0 30
0

40 40

GP9
GP5
50 50
Fig. 6 (a). Maintained load test —load: settlement graplf for Fig. 6 (b). Maintained load test —load: settlement graph for
9m piles 12m piles

Settlement of pile head, mm Settlement of pile head, mm

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 5 10 15

Ql

o 20 c0o 40

50
C
o.
O C GP6
0
30 60
0 0

70

40
GP9
GP1
90

50 100
GP4
Fig. 6 (c). Maintained load test —load: settlement graph for Fig. 6 (d). Constant rate of penetration test —load: settlement
19m pifes graph for 9m piles

52 Ground Engineering
 Settlement of pile head, mm Settlement of pile head, mm
5 10 15 5 10 15

10

20

30

0 40 40
0
GP

G 50 J= 50
0
0
0
60 60
0
70

80

90 90
~GP8 GP4

100 100
Fig. 6 (e). Constant rate of penetration test —load: settlement Fig. 6 (f). Constant rate of penetration test —load: settlement
graph for 12m piles graph for 19m piles

test site would have the minimum recom-

mended working loads outlined in Table
III, With such a factor of safety the maxi-
mum calculated settlement of the test
piles was less than half the criteria of
10mm.

Conclusions
It has proven possible by the use of
post-grouting techniques to obtain ulti-
mate carrying capacities in excess of 90
tonnes for 150mm dia. micro-piles formed
in very stiff I ondon Clay.
With the application of normal factors
of safety, safe working loads in excess of 100
27 tonnes could be provided by a 19m
long pile.
terms of an adhesion or Alpha factor
In
+ GP8

for design purposes the post-grouting GP4+

technique appears to give an Alpha fac-
tor varying between 0.7 and in excess 80
of 1.0, which is two to three times the
normal value for conventional micro-piling GP9+
techniques.
GP
0
0
I 1
Such increases in load-carrying capacity 0
are well in accord with values recorded '0
by other workers on the use of such post-
grouting techniques.
10
0 60 sf GP2 i
GP
+

E
)e Gp5+~
Acknowledgements GP6
The authors and Ground Anchors Ltd.
are indebted to British Railways Board for /
their permission and helpfulness in allow- GP3+
Park site 40
ing the use of their Westbourne
for the Gewi pile test programme,
I
References
CP 2004 (1972): Code of practice for Foundations,
British Standards Institution, London.
Herbsr, T. (1979): Personal communication. 20
Littlejohn, G, S, (1970): "Sbil Anchors''. InstPtu-
tion of Civil Engineers, Ground Engineering Con-
ference, London.
Ostermayer, H (1975): "Construction, carrying
behaviour and creep characteristics of ground
anchors". Conference on Diaphragm Walls and
Anchorages, Institution of Civil Engineers, London.
Skempton, A. W. (1959): "Cast in-situ bored piles 0 10
in London Clay". Geotechnique, Vol, IX. 20
Tomlinson, M. J, (1977): "Pile design and con- Length of pile, m
struction practice". Viewpoint Publications, Ce-
ment and Concrete Association. London. F'lg. 7. Gewi piles —length vs. ultimate load in London Clay
September, 1980 53