Under the 45^o load spread rule, when the horizontal distance between the toe level of adjacent piles is smaller than the vertical difference between the piles, additional load is deemed to be added by the pile at lower founding level. Hence, when the pile at lower founding level is within the zone of 45^o spreading from the pile at higher elevation, further load checking is required for the lower pile.

This 45^o load spread rule is a common practice of foundation engineers and may not be incorporated in foundation codes. There are some situations where this rule may fail. For instance, when two piles at the same foundation level are situated close to each other, they shall have load effect on each other. However, based on 45^o load spread rule, it could not address this concern.

This question is taken from book named – A Closer Look at Prevailing Civil Engineering Practice – What, Why and How by Vincent T. H. CHU.

Excavation of bored piles is usually implemented by a hammer grab. The steel casing will be extended by welding or bolting on additional casing and is installed by hydraulic oscillator. Water is pumped into the casing during excavation and excess water head is required to be maintained to prevent any ingress of material at the bottom of casing. Moreover, for excavation below pile casing, the provision of excess water head is essential to maintain bore stability.

This question is taken from book named – A Closer Look at Prevailing Civil Engineering Practice – What, Why and How by Vincent T. H. CHU.

It appears to be a common construction practice that bored piles are normally cast up to a piling platform much higher than the formation level of pile caps. Then, the excessive pile length has to be cropped and removed to the correct level for the subsequent construction of pile cap. The reasons of such practice are as follows:

(i) It is technically sound to employ such practice because laitance, impurities and poorly-compacted concrete should have migrated to the top of the piles. Therefore, additional length at the top of piles is constructed to accommodate these sub-standard concrete, which are subsequently removed and cropped to leave high quality concrete over the entire length of piles.

(ii) In actual site practice, the details of construction sequence and access arrangements have potential impact on the possibility of constructing piles to correct level without the need of cropping.

This question is taken from book named – A Closer Look at Prevailing Civil Engineering Practice – What, Why and How by Vincent T. H. CHU.

The following picture shows how Piles are used to retain soil. Piles are very useful way to prevent the sliding soil. More over as we go deep and deep, excavation becomes a prime source of concern for site engineers as soil keeps on flowing. More over in some cases it can become a source of accident. So piles are a great relief to site engineers.

Following is a step by step procedure to design an anchored sheet pile in clay. This systematic approach covers all the details you need to design an Anchored Sheet Pile In Clay. The design is given in a systematic manner so that it is useful for one and all. Just do these calculations step by step and you will find designing of anchored Sheet piles in clay is very easy to do. These steps are being submitted to us by Er. Sadaf Noor and are taken from her engineering notes.

In case you have any issues with these steps kindly use the comment form.

We are thankful to a Er. Sadaf Noor Ahmed for this valuable contribution and hope to see more such valuable contributions from her.