For over 90 years, sheet piles has been a tried and tested method in specialist foundation and hydraulic engineering. As a result of continuous improvements in the methods of installation, this technique is characterized by high cost-effectiveness and an ever increasing range of applications.

The main area of application is the retention of excavation pits in areas where there is no space for a slope or where sealing against positive water pressure is required. Here, sheet piles are used to create a rigid barrier, which is removed after completion of the construction works and backfilling of the excavation pit.

The individual sheet piles are connected to each other by a vertical interlocking system (tongue and groove) to form a continuous wall of sheet piles. During installation, each sheet pile is guided laterally by the interlock of the previously driven sheet pile and connected to it positively and watertight.

Sheet piles can be made to be practically watertight. It is also possible to work below the water table inside an excavation pit enclosed by sheet piles (sheet piles cofferdam). Sheet piles retaining walls can be sealed at the bottom of the excavation by the following methods: underwater concrete slab, jet-grouted base slab, soft gel horizontal cut-off or temporary dewatering with pumps (dewatering system).

Sheet piles driving: For the construction of retaining walls, sheet piles or steel beams are driven with high frequency vibrohammers. A casing is vibrated into the ground and backfilled with gravel or concrete when extracting the casing. Vibropiles (displacement piles) are used as load bearing elements or as a ground improvement system. VIB-walls are used as cut-off walls. A heavy steel beam is driven to a predefined depth by a hydraulic vibrator. The slim gap which is created by the beam is filled with slurry when extracting the beam. A continuous wall is formed by an overlapping construction of elements. A hydraulically driven vibrator cell with rotating eccentric weights is mounted at the bottom of the depth vibrator TR, producing vibrations in horizontal direction and creating a hole which is filled with pump concrete when extracting the vibroflot.

This article comes from bauerpileco edit released