Pipe Piling
What is Pipe Piling?
Pipe piling is a round shaped pile. In fact, it is designed to be driven capped or uncapped and filled with a stiffening agent such as concrete. Once driven, the pile remains in place due to friction with the soil.
Advantages
Pipe piles have many advantages over other piling materials such as H-piles. Some of the advantages include:
- Improved Friction: With a larger surface area, pipe piles offer up to a 30% increase in skin friction over H-piles.
- Equal weight distribution: Just like other pipes, pipe piles have a round profile. In fact, the cylindrical shape allows for weight to be more evenly distributed than H-piles
- Fillable: Pipe piles can be filled with concrete and reinforced with rebar. Moreover, this allows the pile to withstand greater underground pressures, and strengthen the pile
Pipe Pile Attachments
Depending on the soil type and length of the foundation the pipe pile is driven into, a series of attachments are available. Specific attachments include:
- Conical Points: Made from cast steel. These conform to ASTM A27 65/35 or ASTM A145 80/40. Moreover, conical points are used to help improve penetration as it is driven into the soil
- End Plates
- Shoes: various types of shoes can be fabricated to the pipe pile to penetrate tricky deep foundations. In fact, one such example is a rock shoe. This helps to support the load when it meets a rocky surface
Types of Pipe Piles
Pipe piles are one of the most versatile pile found in the deep foundation industry. As such, there are several types of pipe piles that should be considered based on the application. These include:
- Standard Steel Piles: Load bearing piles that support a large range of different pile types. Various attachments, including conical points, can be welded to the pile for more efficient driving through specific soil types
- Micro Piles: Ideal for projects with minimal workspace and low headroom. In a mini caisson, the pile is filled with concrete to help reduce high underground pressures and reinforced with high strength rebar
- Helical piles or Screw Piles: These piles have a screw or helix welded to the end of the pile shaft. The pile is then “screwed” into the ground for deep foundation projects. This leads to an ease of installation, shorter project times and less soil displacement than other pile types.
Contractors Is Driven To Support Your Pipe Piling Needs
At Contractors Steel, we carry a full range of pipe piling products to the ASTM A252 specification. This includes:
- Outside Diameters of 8.625”, 9.625”, 10.750”, 12.000”, 12.750”, 14.000”, 16.000”, 18.000” and 20.000”
- Wall thickness of 0.250”, 0.313”, 0.375”, 0.500”, 0.625”
These pipe piles are designed to support the deep foundation industry. And with our experience in first-step processing, we can fabricate and weld the pile attachments you need to meet tight schedules. We are driven to support all your deep foundation projects – contact us for a quote today.