Driven Pile Foundation Design and Construction Issues for A High-rise Building in Manhattan-Paper

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The paper describes the design and construction of driven-pile foundations for a Manhattan high-rise built amid existing buildings, active streets, and nearby public transportation infrastructure. The site contained deep historic fill, compressible former river-bottom soils, and dense sand over bedrock, making shallow foundations unsuitable.<br /><br />The building was supported by high-capacity, open-ended steel pipe piles bearing on rock. Design considered both the 2008 New York City Building Code earthquake and a more severe 2,500-year maximum credible earthquake. Analyses indicated potential liquefaction and lateral spreading during the larger event, requiring checks of pile deflection, bending, and pile-to-cap connections.<br /><br />To reduce costs, high-strength secondary oil casing pipe was selected. Its very high carbon equivalency required preheating and qualified welding procedures. Because pile lengths and transport limits necessitated multiple splices, three splice types were evaluated: welded drive-fit sleeves, partial-joint-penetration (PJP) welds, and complete-joint-penetration (CJP) welds. CJP splices were used where seismic bending demands were high; sleeve and PJP splices were restricted to deeper, lower-moment portions of piles. Testing found that rapid cooling of hot welds in groundwater did not significantly reduce weld strength. However, forensic investigation found failures in some sleeve splices, linked to poor fusion and contamination, so this option was discontinued for production.<br /><br />A rigorous quality-assurance program included procedure qualification, preheating, certified welders, visual and nondestructive inspection, weld identification, and repair and reinspection of defects. Finally, uplift and lateral load tests assessed whether soil disturbance from adjacent drilled-pile construction reduced driven-pile capacity. Tests showed no significant reduction.<br /><br />The case highlights the importance of seismic demand assessment, weldability testing and splice selection, traceable weld inspection, and field verification when nearby construction may disturb supporting soils.

Keywords

driven-pile foundations

Manhattan high-rise

steel pipe piles

seismic design

liquefaction

pile splices

complete-joint-penetration welds

quality assurance

weld inspection

soil disturbance