Ch.

4 PILE FOUNDATIONS

4.1 Introduction
Piles are structural members of timber, concrete, and/or steel, used to transmit surface
loads to lower levels in the soil mass.

4.1.1 Uses
Subsurface and/or loading conditions that lead to the use of deep foundations can include:

A. Inadequate strength or compressibility of the soil immediately below the structure or

ground surface to support the loading conditions using a shallow foundation.

B. The soil immediately below the structure or current ground surface may be eroded by
wind or water scouring during the life of the structure. These conditions can include
structures to be built on sand dunes in a desert or river crossing bridges.

C. Excessive movement of the soil immediately below the structure or ground surface
could occur due to changes in water content (i.e., expansive or collapsible soil),
or liquefiable under seismic loading conditions.

D. For structures that impose large tensile force, lateral force, bending moment, or com-
binations of the above on the foundation. Structures such as transmission towers, light
poles, offshore oil rigs, wind turbines, or super high-rise buildings can involve such
loading conditions.

4.1.2 Types
The types of pile foundations may consider the following factors, [Table (4.1) and Figure
(4.1)] :

A. Materials—commonly used materials include concrete, steel, timber, or composite

with a combination of these materials. The concrete piles can be precast in factory,
reinforced, and with or without pre-stressing, or the concrete piles can be cast in
place, meaning to bore a hole in the ground and then fill it with concrete.

B. Geometry—straight or tapered in longitudinal direction. The pile can have a

circular, square, rectangular, or polygonal cross-sectional area. Most of the steel
piles are hollow, such as the steel pipe piles. The steel H-piles have an H-shaped
cross-sectional area. The precast concrete piles can be hollow or solid.
C. Load transfer mechanism—how the load applied to the pile head is transferred to
the ground. For example, a friction pile means most of the load is transferred to the
surrounding soil through frictional force along the pile shaft. A toe bearing pile
means the applied load is mostly supported by resistance at the pile toe. Of course,
it is possible to have a pile with its applied load supported by both shaft friction
and toe resistance with various proportions.

D. Ground displacement—the amount of ground material being pushed aside by the

insertion of the pile. For example, a driven pile is expected to displace soil with the
same volume as that to be occupied by the pile. A driven, solid concrete pile is a
high-displacement pile. A steel H-pile with small cross-sectional area is a low-
displacement pile. The amount of disturbance caused by pile driving is
proportional to ground displacement. High-displacement pile installation in loose
granular soil is likely to densify the surrounding soil. In dense granular soil or
cohesive soil, high-displacement pile installation tends to cause ground heaving.

E. Method of installation—piles can be installed by driving with an impact hammer;

we call these driven piles. Or the piles can be cast in place by first drilling a hole in
the ground and then filling it with concrete; we called these bored piles. There are
other names for bored piles; for example, drilled shafts, drilled piers, drilled
caissons or caissons, and cast-in-drilled-hole piles.
Table 4.1
Table 4.1 (continued)
Table 4.1 (continued)
Table 4.1 (continued)
4.1.3 Choice of pile type
There is no clear procedure for selection of the type of deep foundation. What we have is
a process of considering the pros and cons for different types of piles for the given
conditions and then we narrow down the final selection in steps.
Figure 4.1
Table 4.2 provides a comparison between driven and bored piles, two
major groups of deep foundations. The selection at this stage is based on a broad
consideration of the environment of the project site and logistics for field construction, in
addition to costs.
Table 4.2

The next stage involves a more refined selection of pile type(s), considering the technical
issues related to ground conditions. Table 4.3 shows a summary of the possible ground
conditions and corresponding considerations in the selection of deep foundation type(s).
Table 4.3

It is possible that after going through the selection process outlined above, more than one
type of pile may appear to be suitable from technical point of view. With these selections
in mind, we proceed to the next stage of static analysis to determine the number and
dimensions of the selected pile type(s).

The final selection of the pile type, its dimensions, and number to be used for the
particular project may require iterations of the selection and static analysis processes.

4.1.4 Typical pile sections

Tables (4.4), (4.5), and (4.6), list typical section properties for prestressed-concrete, steel
H-, and steel pipe-piles, respectively.
Table 4.4
Table 4.5
Table 4.6
Table 4.6