Volume 4, Issue 2 June 2019

Series Report: Reports from USA (Part 2)

Riverine Levee Improvements in Densely Populated Areaswith Press-in Piling Method
Takefumi Takuma
Giken Ltd.
c/o Giken America Corp., 5850 T.G. Lee Blvd., Suite 535, Orlando, FL 32822
Phone: 407-380-3232, E-mail: takefumi_takuma-email@yahoo.co.jp
ABSTRACT
Levees are protecting people’s lives and properties from flooding worldwide. However, they need to be improved
according to the changes in their performance requirements and/or applicable design codes. Steel sheet piles are usedfor retrofitting many existing earthen levees for their speedy constructability, stable quality, high strength, and lasting
durability. This paper will study two riverine levee improvement projects in densely populated areas that utilized pressedin sheet piles in order to control noise and vibration associated with pile driving.
ADAVANTAGES OF THE PRESS-IN PILING METHOD
The most common press-in piling machines such as Giken’s Silent Pilers use hydraulic force to press piles into the groundby holding onto a few previously installed piles. To summarize the advantages of the press-in piling of this type over othermethods:
1. It generates very low noise and is practically vibration free (White et al., 2002).
2. The press-in piling machine is relatively small and its clamping points are much lower than those with other piling
methods. The lower clamping points enable the equipment to work in physically tight working conditions, horizontallyand vertically, such as an area under railway girders (Takuma et al., 2015) or right next to existing sensitive structures(Takuma et al., 2013).
3. With attachments, it can deal with hard soil conditions very effectively (Takuma et al., 2018).
4. It can achieve much more accurate pile installation due to a combination of the machine’s better control of the piles
and low clamping points.
A high pressure jetting or continuous flight auger attachment will be coupled with a press-in piling machine when
installing piles in hard soil conditions. The water jet attachment is good for dense sand and silt layers, while the auger
attachment facilitates pile installation into stiff clay, gravels, cobbles, boulders and soft rock. These attachments work
simultaneously with pile driving, minimizing settlement of the surrounding ground.
In the case that access to a piling location isvery limited, the Giken Reaction Base (orGRB) System may provide a solution with a
Clamp Crane, which clamps onto and moves
on previously driven piles; and Pile Runner,which travels also on the driven piles
between the Clamp Crane and a faraway
material supply point. The piling operation
can be done without an access road with thissystem. See Fig. 1 for the concept of the GRB
system in the case of a pipe pile application.

Fig. 1. GRB System Operation without an Access Road9Volume 4, Issue 2 June 2019
GARDERE CANAL IMPROVEMENTS – PHASE 2 IN HARVEY, LOUISIANAThe Gardere Canal is located in the New Orleans southern suburb of Harvey in Jefferson Parish on the west bank of theMississippi River while majority of the City of New Orleans is on the other side. This SELA-06 Gardere Canal Phase 2project was part of the multi-year Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project (abbreviated as the SELA Project) bythe US Army Corps of Engineers and the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans to enhance the flood control abilityin New Orleans and its surrounding areas. The entire SELA project was authorized by the United States Congress in 1996,
prompted by the May 1995 Louisiana Flood and worked on in segments and phases. The construction of this particularsection started in March, 2007. Approximately 4,000 pairs of PZ35 sheet piles were installed to form a wider concretelined drainage channel for a higher discharge capability. See Fig. 2 for its typical cross section. The press-in piling wasspecified to minimize the noise and vibration levels of the sheet pile installation work since the canal ran through densely
populated residential and commercial areas. As shown in the boring data (Fig. 3), the soil was mostly soft clay except asilty fine sand layer with the SPT value of about 30 between 5.5m and 7.0m below the GL.

Fig. 2. Typical Cross Section

Fig. 3. Soil Conditions and Sheet Pile Location
Fig. 4 shows the canal’s typical conditions prior to improvement. As can be noted, the levees on both sides were borderingwith backyards of the area’s houses. Two units of Silent Pilers were used to facilitate progress of the sheet pile installation.
A small caterpillar-mounted service crane was hoisting the sheets to both equipment as shown in Fig. 5. The construction
noise and vibration were successfully mitigated.

Fig. 4. Gardere Canal before Improvement

Fig. 5. Two Silent Pilers at Work10

Volume 4, Issue 2 June 2019
Giken America Corp. (Giken’s U.S. subsidiary) and later Blue
Iron Foundations and Shoring LLC took care of the press-in
piling work under B&K Construction Company, Inc. of
Mandeville, Louisiana. The press-in sheet pile installation
was completed in the spring of 2010. Fig. 6 shows thecompleted levee improvement work. There have been an
increased number of projects with the press-in piling
specified in this region including other SELA projects since
this one.

Fig. 6. Completed Gardere Canal Improvement
SANDALWOOD CANAL IMPROVEMENTS IN JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA
Sandalwood Canal In-channel Improvements Project (Hodges Blvd. from Beach Blvd. to Atlantic Blvd., Project No. P-8001) was to repair the damaged earthen levees by an earlier flooding as well as to increase the drainage capacity of anexisting canal by widening/deepening with sheet piles installed in the levees located in a densely populated residential
area of Jacksonville, Florida. Fig. 7 illustrates its typical cross section with the broken line showing the existing ground.

Fig. 7. Typical Cross Section
In order to minimize noise/vibration and also to reduce in-stream exposure time of piling equipment during construction,
two units of Silent Pilers were used, so the work was to be done only during the dry season of winter. The soil conditions
were primarily sandy with the SPT values of between 10 and 45 as shown in Fig. 8.
The noise and vibration levels during the sheet pile driving were limited by the project specifications that stated: “Thehydraulic press-in equipment shall not produce more than 70dB of noise, at a distance of 25 feet from the equipment,
while in operation. It shall not produce any measurable vibration at the ground surface, at a distance of 25 feet from theequipment, while in operation.”
The project was started off with clearing of vegetation overgrown on the levees. Fig. 9 shows the conditions after thevegetation removal. As can be seen, the widths of the levee’s shoulders were too narrow (approximately 3m on the widerside) for a truck crane to maneuver through. Therefore, a 10ton-capacity Clamp Crane was used with small flatbed trucks
delivering sheet piles to the crane by driving on the levee’s wider shoulder. A weir was first built with pressed-in sheet
piles as shown in Fig. 10.

11Volume 4, Issue 2 June 2019

Fig. 9. Sandalwood Canal after Removal of Vegetation

Fig. 8. Soil Conditions and Sheet Pile Location

Fig. 10. Sheet Piles Installation for Weir
The Clamp Crane was hoisting sheet piles to both Silent Pilers (Fig. 11). Approximately 950 pairs of 7.0m to 9.0m-long
PZC18 sheet piles were installed without causing damage to nearby homes. Fig. 12 shows the completed section of sheet
pile walls. The project’s owner was the City of Jacksonville with its design consultant being CDM’s Jacksonville office.
Giken America Corp. pressed in all the sheet piles under Felix Associates, LLC located at Stuart, Florida. The duration ofsheet pile installation was between November 2007 and February 2008.

Fig. 12. Completed Sheet Pile Installation

Fig. 11. Clamp Crane Pitching Sheet Piles to Silent Piler
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CONCLUSIONS
Sheet piles are commonly used for improvement work of existing levees. Noise and vibration associated with conventional
sheet pile installation can be easily mitigated with the use of press-in piling as exemplified by the case study projects. The
GRB system in combination with press-in piling enables sheet pile installation where supplying sheet piles to the piling
location is otherwise extremely difficult due to lack of sufficient access. Many levee improvement projects in various partsof the U.S. have been and will be increasingly adopting pressed-in sheet piles next to residential/commercial properties
and to other sensitive structures like underground utilities and bridge foundations.
REFERENCES
Takuma, T., Nishimura, H., and Kambe, S. (2013), Low Noise and Low Vibration Tube Pile Installation by the Press-In
Piling Method, Proceedings of Deep Foundations Institute 2013 Annual Conference
Takuma, T., Nishimura, H., and Kambe, S., (2015), Development of Very Low Head Room Sheet Piler Press in Driver,
Proceedings of 2015 International Foundations Congress and Equipment Expo
Takuma, T., DellAringa, C., and Nagano, M., Retrofitting Drainage Systems with Pressed-In Sheet Piles in Very Hard Soil inSouthern California, (2018), Proceedings of Deep Foundations Institute 2018 Annual Conference
White, D., Finlay, T., Bolton, M. and Bearss, G. (2002), “Press-in Piling: Ground Vibration and Noise During Piling
Installation”, Proceedings of the International Deep Foundation Congress, ASCE Special Publication 11613