Post-Construction Piles for New Floor

Location:Summer Camp Welcome Center: St. Theresa, FL

Scope of Work:Post Construction Helical Piles

General Contractor:Childers Construction

Foundation Contractor:Alpha Foundation Specialists, Inc.

Finished Bracket & Drive Rite Series™ 26000 Series Piles

Pre-Installation Load Test

Challenge:

Alpha Foundation Specialists, Inc. was contacted by General Contractor Childers Construction to install Drive Rite™ 2600 Series 2-7/8" Schedule 80 Helical Pipe Piles at the Summer Camp Welcome Center in St. Teresa, Florida.

The live loads of the building changed when the building changed from a sales office to a store & restaurant. Helical piles were used to attach to the existing beams to give the floor the needed support for the new loads. Since the building had a roof and the coastal soils were highly unpredictable. Helical piles were one of the only options.

Alpha Foundation Specialists, Inc. reviewed the soil information and found a dense layer of soil in the first 10’, followed by 30’ of soil that had less than 5 bps (blows per foot). The poor soil conditions made it necessary to use 2 14" helices installed to an average depth of 7’; however several penetrated as much as 40’ of soil before finding a sufficient layer of soil. The helical piles were installed to 5,000 foot/pounds of torque with a mobile hydraulic anchor drive. Torque readings were monitored by a local engineering firm, Ardaman and Associates.

All piles had 2’ to 5’ of stick up which allowed for the bracket connection. The brackets were specially designed for each beam because of different beam dimensions and applications. A large galvanized saddle bracket as shown to the right was used to make the connection to the beam.

Williams Rod (A coarse all thread) was used to draw any slack out of the bracket and apply pressure to the beam. All brackets were than bolted to the beam with through bolts to prevent any lateral movement.

A load test was setup and performed by Alpha Foundation Specialists, Inc. prior to production pile installation to backup the computer findings of the pile capacities. Installation of the piles took 4 working days to install 66 helical piles.

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