Why soil conditions are important to solar foundation design?

Understanding a potential solar project’s ground conditions can influence many design
considerations, most importantly what foundation to choose. The most economical
foundation design can depend on geographical location, soil type, local building code
requirements, groundwater levels, corrosion potential and topography.

Types of foundations

- Direct drive foundation posts:

Perhaps the most common solar foundation design for both fixed-tilt and tracking
projects, direct drive foundation posts include various sized W-section beams, C-channels,
hat channels and round pipe.

- Helical posts, earth screws:

Popular in regions with weak granular soils, helical posts and earth screws rely on the
torque axial relationship between the shaft and thread components of the helical/screw
and frictional capacity developed within the soil regime or aggregate downhole.
- Concrete ballast:

Either precast or cast-in-place, concrete ballast is a practical foundation solution on re-

purposed brownfield sites, landfills with membrane caps, environmentally
remediated/closure sites and also designated Class II wetland sites in some states where
minimally invasive foundation designs are required.

A comprehensive geotechnical investigation can be beneficial in understanding how

subsurface conditions may impact project design and long-term serviceability. Likewise,
full-scale load testing can help validate a foundation design.

- Geotechnical data

Geotechnical investigations may employ test borings, in-situ field testing and/or test pit
excavations.

A site investigation consisting of soil borings and laboratory testing will provide, in most
cases, a representative cross sectional subsurface profile of the solar array site. The
number of borings is usually dependent on site accessibility and size of the project.

Test borings include standard penetration testing (SPT) that provides standardized blow
counts or N values. The N values are a measure of the relative density of cohesionless
soils (sands) and the relative consistency of cohesive soils (clays), and these values can be
reliably correlated to axial and lateral post capacity for a given site.

Test pit excavations are also a valuable tool as an option to soil test borings. Excavation
characteristics of the soil can be evaluated, excavation sidewalls will expose soil
stratification boundaries, soil penetration resistance readings can be obtained with a
hand-held penetrometer instrument, perched seasonal ground water can be observed
and representative bulk soil samples for laboratory testing can be collected from the
excavation spoils.

Engineering software products can also provide help. The level of accuracy of the software
product is a function of the number of specific soil engineering index inputs that are
loaded into the program model to simulate subsurface conditions. The model can predict
the point of fixity of the structural section being considered in the foundation design as
well as a conservative post embedment depth and subsequent overall post length.
The corrosion potential of the soil should also be evaluated to determine if any
supplemental corrosion protection is required beyond the standard 3-mil galvanization
coating, which is used to ensure the foundation posts will meet or exceed the design
service life of the project.

- Load testing
Full-scale load testing performed in concert with a drivability survey is the most accurate
methodology to fully validate a foundation design. Three tests posts should be installed
in nests. One of the posts should be installed to the target foundation embedment design
depth, while one is driven deeper and another is driven shallower for performance
comparison.

The static axial capacity of piles typically changes as time elapses after the test post
installation, depending on soil/rock properties, pore water pressure and soil structure
disturbance induced by installation. A soil rebound period between installation and load
testing should be considered and range from three to 30 days.

Load testing loads are derived from the size and type of racking, number of foundation
posts per rack and local building requirements for wind loads, snow loads and adfreeze
bond stress (frost designs). The test piles are loaded axially and laterally in five-load
increments, held for a four-minute duration per increment. The first four increments
represent 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of the design load. The fifth load is a factored design
load representing 150% of the design load equivalent to a safety factor of 1.5.

Axial compression testing of test posts is normally performed in extreme cold weather
climates where a bond break frost mitigation design has been incorporated into the
foundation design, thus transferring the governing loads from axial uplift to compression
down. An appropriately sized track excavator serves as the reaction beam testing axially
in tension. The bucket is used to test laterally, and the counterweight of the machine is
engaged to test axially in compression. A track excavator is ideal for load testing for its
speed and mobility accessing difficult terrain, its ability to apply 50,000+ lbs of force and
for test pile extraction at the completion of the load test.

The drivability study is performed in concert with the test post nest installation. Drivability
indicator posts are driven, usually in a grid pattern to various embedment depths, above
and below the target foundation design depth to record drive times and to document
subsurface obstructions, boulders and/or bedrock. The drivability survey data is valuable
to estimating production drive times and budget purposes to quantify difficult driving or
subsurface obstruction areas.

Adhering to ASTM standards in load testing is critical to both repeatability and

transparency in design. Many solar racking companies conduct load testing using a range
of independent methods, some of which may only be interpreted by the racking company
itself.