Urban and industrial construction projects commonly involve interior work within buildings, warehouses and manufacturing facilities. Renovations of these existing structures must address both structural and geotechnical engineering challenges while also balancing the practicality of implementing solutions within site constraints including limited site access, overhead clearance restrictions, vibration tolerances and uninterrupted facility operations. This paper highlights two projects for an international shipping company where mezzanine level additions within active shipping facilities required construction of new foundations. Construction requirements included low vibration levels, as well as rapid and clean installation to limit
impacts on the active shipping operations. The selected system also needed to adjust to both variable ground conditions and differing overhead clearances. This paper describes the installation, design and performance
of Ductile Iron Piles used to meet the project challenges. The low vibration, driven pile system offered the ability to work within restricted overhead environments while successfully delivering working compression
capacities ranging from 45 to 75 tons (41 to 68 tonnes) as well as lateral and tension resistance. The paper also presents the results of site-specific load testing (and pile capacity) for various termination criteria.
Subjects: Ductile Iron Pile, interior, overhead clearance
Author: Gregg Piazza, P.E., Keithe J. Merl, P.E., and Brendan FitzPatrick, P.E.