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Posts by Kanwarjot Singh

How to measure rock during piling operation?

There is no strict rule in governing the measure of rock encountered in piling operation. There are two common practices in measuring rock during piling:

(i) Measure the quantity of obstruction taken out from the drilled out;
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It is not necessary to design nominal reinforcement to piles. Is it true?

In BS8110 and BS5400 Pt.4, they require the provision of nominal reinforcement for columns. However, for pile design the requirement of nominal reinforcement may not be necessary. Firstly, as piles are located
underground, the occurrence of unexpected loads to piles is seldom. Secondly, shear failure of piles is considered not critical to the structure due to severe collision. Moreover, the failure of piles by buckling due to fire is unlikely because fire is rarely ignited underground.
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What are the head details of H-piles under compression and subject to bending moment?

For steel sections referred to in BS5950, universal bearing pile is characterized by having equal flange and web thickness while universal column has different flange and web thickness. Universal columns can also be used as bearing piles.
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What are the functions of different reinforcement in a typical pile cap?

Loads from columns transferring to pile cap induce tensile forces at the bottom of the cap. For instance, by using truss analogy to analyze a pile cap sitting on two piles with a column at the centre of the pile cap, the tensile force at the bottom is proportional to the pile spacing and is inversely proportional to depth of pile cap. The bottom reinforcement is designed to resist the tensile stressed generated from loads in columns.

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How does the pile installation method affect the load carrying capacity of piles?

The construction of piles by driving method causes an increase in density of the surrounding soils. Hence, for loose soils this results in improved compaction of soils between the piles.

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Which of the following stages is noisier, at the ending of pile driving operation or at the end of pile driving operation?

When the piles are progressively driven into the ground, the pile section above the ground declines. As a result, the degree of damping on the piles increases. Moreover, the area of exposure of piling surface reduces, thereby reducing the area generating noise form piles. Hence towards the end of pile driving operation, the noise level shall be reduced accordingly.

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In designing the lateral resistance of piles, should engineers only use the earth pressure against pile caps only?

In some design lateral loads are assumed to be resisted by earth pressure exerted against the side of pile caps only. However, it is demonstrated that the soil resistance of pile lengths do contribute a substantial part of lateral resistance. Therefore, in designing lateral resistance of piles, earth pressure exerted on piles should also be taken into consideration.

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Which one is a better choice, a large diameter piles or a system of several smaller piles with the same load capacity?

The choice of a large diameter pile suffers from the disadvantage that serious consequences would occur in case there is setting out error of the pile.

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Do edge piles take up same loadings as central piles in rigid cap?

Due to the effect of interaction of individual piles, the central piles tend to settle more than the edge piles when the pile cap is under a uniform load. For the pile cap to be rigid, the local deformation of central piles would not occur. Instead, the stiff pile cap would transfer the loads from the central piles and redistribute them to the outer piles. Therefore, raking piles at the edge take up a higher fraction of the total loads and are subjected to higher axial and bending loads in case the pile cap is stiff. In the extreme case, the side piles may take up as much as about two to three times the loads in the central piles and this may lead to the failure of these raking edge piles.

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What are the differences between pinned bases and fixed bases?

When structures like portal frames are connected to the base foundation, engineers have to decide the degree of fixity for the connection. In general, the two common design options are pinned bases and fixed bases.

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