SNEHANSHU .

KHAIRE
1839 SEM 7
4th YR. B.ARCH
SIR. J. J. COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE
Types of Piles
Piles can by classified on the basis of
following characteristics, following are the
types of piles:
- Mechanism of Load Transfer
- Method of Installation
- Type of Materials
Classification of Piles on the basis of load transfer
Types of piles based on the mechanism of Load Transfer:
End/Point Bearing Piles:
- If a bedrock or rocklike material is present at a site within a reasonable
depth, piles can be extended to the rock surface.
- In this case, the ultimate bearing capacity of the pile depends entirely on
the underlying material; thus the piles are called end or point bearing piles.
- In most of these cases the necessary length of the pile can be fairly well
established.
Friction Piles:
- In these types of piles, the load on pile is resisted mainly by skin/friction
resistance along the side of the pile (pile shaft).
- Pure friction piles tend to be quite long, since the load-carrying. - - -
- Capacity is a function of the shaft area in contact with the soil. In cohesion
less soils, such as sands of medium to low density, friction piles are often
used to increase the density and thus the shear strength.
- When no layer of rock or rocklike material is present at a reasonable depth
at a site, point/end bearing piles become very long and uneconomical.
- For this type of subsoil condition, piles ate driven through the softer
material to specified depth.
Friction cum end bearing piles
- In the majority of cases, however, the load-carrying capacity is dependent
on both end-bearing and shaft friction.
Classification of Piles according to the
Method of Installation of piles
Driven or displacement piles
- They are usually pre-formed before being driven, jacked,
screwed or hammered into ground.
- This category consists of driven piles of steel or precast
concrete and piles formed by driving tubes or shells
which are fitted with a driving shoe.
- The tubes or shells which are filled with concrete after
driving.
- Also included in this category are piles formed by
placing concrete as the driven piles are withdrawn.
Bored or Replacement piles
- These types of piles require a hole to be first bored into
which the pile is then formed usually of reinforced
concrete.
- The shaft (bore) may be eased or uncased depending
upon type of soil.
Types of Piles based on Materials
Timber piles
- Timber piles are made of-tree trunks driven with small
end as a point
- Maximum length: 35 m; optimum length: 9 - 20m
- Max load for usual conditions: 450 kN; optimum load
range = 80 - 240 kN
Disadvantages of using timber piles:
- Difficult to splice, vulnerable to damage in hard driving,
vulnerable to decay unless treated with preservatives (If
timber is below permanent Water table it will apparently
last forever), if subjected to alternate wetting & drying,
the useful life will be short, partly embedded piles or
piles above Water table are susceptible to damage from
wood borers and other insects unless treated.
Advantages:
- Comparatively low initial cost, permanently submerged
piles are resistant to decay, easy to handle, best suited for
friction piles in granular material.
Steel piles
Maximum length practically unlimited, optimum length: 12-
50m.
- Load for usual conditions = maximum allowable stress x cross-
sectional area.
- The members are usually rolled HP shapes/pipe piles. Wide
flange beams & I beams proportioned to withstand the hard
driving stress to which the pile may be subjected.
- In HP pile the flange thickness = web thickness, piles are
either welded or seamless steel pipes, which may be driven
either open ended or closed end.
- Closed end piles are usually filled with concrete after driving.
- Open end piles may be filled but this is not often necessary.
Advantages of steel piles:
- Easy to splice, high capacity, small displacement, able to
penetrate through light obstructions, best suited for end bearing
on rock, reduce allowable capacity for corrosive locations or
provide corrosion protection.
Disadvantages of steel piles:
Vulnerable to corrosion.
- HP section may be damaged/deflected by major obstruction.
Concrete Piles
- Concrete piles may be precast, prestressed, cast in place, or of
composite construction.
- Precast concrete piles may be made using ordinary reinforcement or
they may be prestressed.
- Precast piles using ordinary reinforcement are designed to resist
bending stresses during picking up & transport to the site & bending
moments from lateral loads and to provide sufficient resistance to
vertical loads and any tension forces developed during driving.
- Prestressed piles are formed by tensioning high strength steel prestress
cables, and casting the concrete abou the cable.
- When the concrete hardens, the prestress cables are cut, with the
tension force in the cables now producing compressive stress in the
concrete pile.
- It is common to higher-strength concrete (35 to 55 MPa) in prestressed
piles because of the large initial compressive stresses from prestressing.
- Prestressing the piles, tend to counteract any tension stresses during
either handling or driving.
- Max length: 10 - 15 m for precast, 20 - 30 m for prestressed.
- Optimum length 10 - 12 m for precast. 18 - 25m prestressed.
- Loads for usual conditions 900 for precast. 8500 kN for prestressed.
Optimum load range: 350 - 3500 kN.
Advantages of concrete piles:
- High load capacities, corrosion resistance can be attained, hard
driving possible.
- Cylinder piles in particular are suited for bending resistance.
- Cast in place concrete piles are formed by drilling a hole in the
ground & filling it with concrete.
- The hole may be drilled or formed by driving a shell or casing into
the ground.
- Disadvantages of concrete piles:
- Concrete piles are considered permanent, however certain soils
(usually organic) contain materials that may form acids that can
damage the concrete.
- Salt water may also adversely react with the concrete unless
special precautions are taken when the mix proportions are
designed.
- Additionally, concrete piles used for marine structures may
undergo abrasion from wave action and floating debris in the water.
- Difficult to handle unless prestressed, high initial cost,
considerable displacement, prestressed piles are difficult to splice.
- Alternate freezing thawing can cause concrete damage in any
exposed situation.
Composite piles
- In general, a composite pile is made up of two or more
sections of different materials or different pile types.
- The upper portion could be eased cast-in-place concrete
combined with a lower portion of timber, steel H or
concrete filled steel pipe pile.
- These piles have limited application and arc employed
under special conditions.
Driven Pile Foundations Design and Construction
- Driven pile foundations are used in low rise buildings and bridge constructions mainly. When the topsoil is not in
good condition and when it does not have the adequate bearing capacity to resist the load from the superstructure, a
driven pile is used.
- The driven pile is a type of pile that inserted up to the hard layer in the soil where it can provide the required end
bearing and skin friction.
- Since the cost of construction is less when compared with the cast in situ bored piles, these types of piling work are
more popular in bridge construction.
- Mainly there are four categories which as based on the nature of the material.
Types of Driven Piles
= Steel Piles
= Precast concrete piles
= Timber Piles
= Composite Piles
Steel Driven Piles Foundations
- There are different types of driven piles constructed from the steel. Since the steel is readily available, construction can be done
quite easily.
- Further, steel piles such as micro piles can be used to support heavy loads applied from bridges and other types can be used to
support medium level loads.
- The main issue with the steel driven piles is the corrosion. However, they are placed below the ground level. Therefore, the
presence of oxygen for corrosion is minimal.
Types of Steel Driven Piles
Micropiles
- Micro piles are steel casinos filled with concrete. Further, depending on the applied loads, pile diameter can be increased based
on the applied load.
- If required, a reinforcement cage can be inserted into the pile to increase the pile load-carrying capacity.
- Pile design can be done as guided in the article pile foundations design, construction and testing guide.
H Piles
- Hot rolled sections are used in the construction. They are welded together to increase the length.
- These types of piling construction are not widely used in the construction.
- However, on special occasions, H piles can be used.
Steel Box Piles
- Four steel sheets welded together to create box shape pile or sheet piles welded together to create a hollow box section can be
used in the construction.
- The inner core can be filled with concrete to improve the lateral stiffness, bending stiffness, torsional stiffness, etc.
Precast Concrete Driven Pile Foundations
The most widely used type of driven piles in the construction. Mainly there are
two types of precast piles.
= Normally reinforced precast piles
= Prestressed Piles
The following key points are highlighted in relation to the precast piles.
- These piles can carry high bending and axial stress.
- Piles constructed with adequate cover and grade of concrete are not subjected to
deteriorations.
- Therefore, these piles are more durable.
- However, the composition of concrete, porosity of the aggregates, cover to the
reinforcements, etc. could cause deterioration of the piles.
- As a result, durability issues could reduce the lifetime of the piles.
- Use of sound and hard aggregates, proper mix design, proper placing, compacting of concrete, proper curing of concrete, etc
improve the durability of concrete.
- The minimum cover could be maintained as 50mm as a durability requirements.
- Further, prestressing reduce the cracking of the concrete.
- Galvanizing the reinforcement is suggested if possible in bearing the cost.
- There are no major issues like corrosion of steel in precast pile construction.
- Further, it is easy to construct than other type of pile foundations. In addition, time take for completing a single pile is also lesser.
he cost of construction is also comparatively very less compared with the cast in situ bored piles.
- Precast piles are available in different dimensions such as 300, 350, 400, 500mm, etc. In addition, they can be obtained in a circular
or rectangular shape.
Timber Piles
- Let’s see basic things about the timber piles in brief.
- Timber piles can be in different dimensions having
different load capacities.
- They are not widely used due to the low load-
carrying capacities
- A tree is used as a timber pile after removing
the branches
- The bottom diameter would be in the range of
300-500mm
- The top diameter could be in the range of 125 – 250mm
- Generally, piles are available in length range 9000mm – 18000mm
- The pile can bear the applied loads and driving forces. However, it is vulnerable if hard driving is
done
- Timber pile are vulnerable to deteriorations
- The following figure taken from the book Foundation Analysis and Design by Bowels indicates the
necessary arrangements to be made in a driven timber pile.
- The design load of the timber piles is in the range of 150kN-250kN. The maximum permissible load is
about 300kN. However, testings done have proven that it could bear a maximum load of about 400kN.
- Attention shall be made when the pile is driving through hard layers as it could damage the pile.
Composite Piles
- Composite piles were started using about 60 years ago. The main
purpose of composite piles was to construct relatively longer piles
economically.
- Different materials are used to construct composite piles. Further,
the selection of the material shall be done to suit the conditions. The
following combination could be expected.
- Timber pile is embedded below the existing ground level and above
the existing ground level (up to top-level) to be constructed from
concrete.
- Concrete filled steel pipe or H iron place lower part of the pile and
upper section to be constructed from concrete.
- Construct upper section with precast piles
- The composite piles are in the range of 18m-36m. However, the
length of 54m has also be driven.
- The optimum load range about 300kN-800kN and the maximum
load limit is about 1500kN.
- One of the main disadvantages of the composite piles is creating a
proper joint between two materials.
Construction of Driven Piles
- Since the precast piles are widely used in the construction, let’s see what are the important aspects of driven piles.
Mainly there are two methods for pile driving.
The conventional method,
= Apply a force on the pile by letting a weight to fall into the pile. The applied load shall be calculated based on the free-fall height
of the weight.
= It shall be made sure that the applied load will not exceed the capacity of the driven pile.
Hammer driving methods.
= There are three types of driving methods. They are
= Diesel Hammer Driving
= Air Hammer Driving
= Vibratory Hammer Driving
- Hammer driving methods are easy to use when compared with the conventional method which required more time.
- Generally, precast piles are constructed in length 6m due to transportation issues. However, if required they can be constructed
even 12m or higher as required.
- When 6m driven piles are used and depth to be driven more than 6m, two piles need to be combined. Steel plates embedded at
the top of the piles are welded together to increase the length.
- The unnecessary length of the pile will be demolished when pile caps are constructed.
Termination and Acceptance Criteria for Driven Piles
= The pile will be driven up to the hard soil layer that is identified as termination level according to the
design. The design and selection of the termination level will be based on the information provided in the
soil investigation report.
= When it reaches the termination level, the movement of the pile will reduce.
= The termination and pile driving criteria have established a base on the wave equation analysis of pile
(WEAP). Necessary modification to this shall be done at the site as it could vary with the actual ground
conditions.
= Further, it is required to record the blow count with the movement of the pile. It could be done as a
number of blows to pile to a particular distance or penetration of pile for a particular number of blows. It
could be done as per the specification of the project.
= There are limitations to the termination. The specification could provide blow count for given
penetration. If it exceeds the blow count to penetrate the specified distance and pile is at the termination
layer as per geotechnical data, the pile could be terminated.

Advantages of Driven Pile
= Not like bored cast in situ piles, driven piles can be
prefabricated. It minimizes the construction error and adequate
quality control can be done.
= Further, any defect such as honeycombs can be repaired in
advance before the installation.
= Since piles are driven against the soil pressure, it improves the
bearing of the soil with the compaction made by the tip of the
pile.
= Less duration and less involvement of labor and machinery till
the installations, reduce the cost comparatively.
= In the case of the failures of materials such as concrete, the pile
can be removed before the installation. But in bored piles, it will
be known only after the construction.
= The pile can be installed inclined to carry the lateral loads.
Widely used in bridge constructions.
= The involvement of the technical staff is less.
= There is no impact by the groundwater table on construction.
= The time taken to cast is singe pile is very less. Therefore, more
suitable for speedy constructions.
Disadvantages of Driven Pile
= Proper planning is required before starting the construction to handle
equipment, site, and transportations.
= They cannot carry heavy loads generally. Therefore, mostly the bored
piles are used when the load on pile increases.
= Further, there is a limitation of increasing the diameter of the pile.
Higher the diameter, the higher the issues of handling the piles.
Transpotatings will be very difficult.
= Structural design shall be checked for the transportation loads. Special
attention shall be made for the Prestress concrete piles as the could dame
when lifting if it is not considered in the design.
= Since the depth of the pile or length of the pile varies from location to
location, the length of the pile cannot be predetermined. Therefore, piles
need to be joint and hack the excess.
= When the piles are constructed in the compacted area, the soil could
lose and its top bearing could be reduced.
= Noise in the installation process shall be controlled.
= Vibrations shall also be controlled.
= If the length of the piles available is not adequate, they need to connect
together to have adequate depth. It could wast pate of the new pile.
= Construction and design of driven piles need to be done for available
sizers if they are brought from the market. Otherwise, they need to be
made for the required size and length.
= Driven piles could not be suitable for soils with poor drainage
properties. A proper geotechnical investigation shall be done to the
suitability of driven piles.