Soil plugging of open-ended steel piles during impact driving

Abstract

During the driving process of an open-ended steel pile, soil is allowed to enter the pile’s core until partial or complete plugging occurs. Once this phenomenon is activated, soil resistance to driving (SRD) increases, which can prevent further soil introduction inside the pile, and in turn halt installation works under similar conditions. In this paper, we demonstrate the relationship between the plugging phenomenon, pile geometry, and driving acceleration by comparing literature with some conducted experiments (Paikowsky, 1990; Magroun, 2012), which show that the risk of plugging decreases mainly with an increase in both pile diameter and driving acceleration. A verification study of plugging occurrence in terms of depth is conducted on an open-ended driven pile at a Moroccan port terminal crossing predominantly sandy layers before anchoring in a lower marl layer. The pile’s bearing capacity is evaluated in both plugged and unplugged cases using the SRD method following the processes of Toolan & Fox (1977) and Alm & Hamre (2001), and based on cone penetration test (CPT) results. The pile is thus found unlikely to plug during driving. As a general rule, we found that the plugging phenomenon must be controlled to avoid any interruption in the pile driving process.