Concrete sheet pile shoring has been around for nearly ten years in China.  The advantages of concrete sheet piles are the long life, water tightness, cost effectiveness and the fact that they are aesthetically pleasing. Diesel and impact hammers have a high risk of damaging the pile during driving so the vibrating method is the preferred installation method. Concrete sheet piles may crumble under the blows of an impact hammer.  With some simple precautions vibrating leaves concrete piles undamaged at the top but vibrating methods will leave them intact and ready for use.

With decades of experience in The Netherlands, and with projects accomplished in places like Nigeria, Thailand and Malaysia, ICE is excited to be part of further developments in this application in China. A number of large projects are scheduled for next 2019.

Vibratory hammers were originally designed for the driving of steel sheet piles, which are narrow and require very little soil displacement. Concrete sheet piles have much larger dimensions and must displace a larger volume of soil during installation. Even so, the vibration method has proven to work well for concrete pile applications. Hydraulic vibratory hammers have a strong advantage over electric hammers in this application. The higher frequency and rotation speed mean much less stress on the concrete.

Compared to piles in Europe the piles in China are much thicker and use more concrete. One of the main reasons for the difference is the installation method. To reduce the thickness of the pile we recommend installation by resonance free vibratory hammer. This proven method eliminates start up vibrations that could damage the pile and as an added benefit reduces vibrating impact to surrounding structure at the same time. While the installation method may be more expensive, the material (-35%) and transportation savings are very significant. We expect that the introduction of RF technology will cause a big change in the cost structure of concrete retaining walls and shake up the installation industry.

Watch this video to see how a specialist contractor from the Netherlands works. With proper planning and preparation, handling and driving the piles is easy, and installing a continuous watertight barrier effortless.

In 2013 the ICE 815C was used at Changxing island to remove piles that had been damaged during installations, demonstrating that the equipment can also be used for extracting piles.

Shanghai ICE has customized clamping systems on stock that can handle the wider body of the concrete sheet pile. The clamp also operates at a lower clamping pressure setting to ensure the pile is not crushed by the clamping force, and is fitted with larger clamp plates to distribute the force over a larger area of the pile.

The following equipment is available for this application from ICE rental fleet:

-       416L and 815C normal frequency vibratory hammers, cost effective and highly efficient installation.

-       20RF and 28RF resonance free vibratory hammers, these allow reduced pile thickness and offer vibration free installation

What about prefabricated concrete piles, can I vibrate those too?

Yes, you can. But there are some limitations though that cause most contractors to choose an impact hammer instead. The TP clamping system used for prefab piles can’t drive the pile top to ground level and is more suitable for driving piles in shallow water. New generation hydraulic hammers do not issue black smoke, and work and reduce sound by 15 decibels when compared to diesel hammers. Ask us about the NL-series impact hammers.

Get in touch with our experts to learn more about this application!