Volume 2, Issue 2 June 2017

Serial Report
History of Cambridge – GIKEN collaboration research (Part 1)
Yukihiro Ishihara, GIKEN LTD.
Stuart Haigh, University of Cambridge
The Cambridge – GIKEN collaboration research started in 1994, based on the strong awareness of Mr. Akio Kitamura,President of GIKEN LTD., of issues relating to construction. Every summer two students visit Kochi, Japan, to carry out
field and model tests using the press-in machines and other facilities of GIKEN, in order to learn this technology byexperience. In some cases, they also conduct model tests or numerical analyses in their own laboratories on their return
to Cambridge. In this report, research related to the tests carried out in Kochi from 1994 to 2003 are presented.
■ [1995-1996]
Project title
Outline of tests in Kochi::

Main students
Related publications::■ [1997-1998]
Project title
Outline of tests in Kochi::

Main students:

Related publications:■ [1998-1999]
Project title
Outline of tests in Kochi::

Main students
Related publications::

Effect of water jetting
Field tests were conducted using a press-in machine to investigate the effect of waterjetting on reducing press-in time in dense sand. U-shaped sheet piles with a width of
400mm (SP-III) were used. The size of the water-jetting nozzle was varied between 6.5
and 8.5mm, with a flowrate of about 320ℓ/min. Two different nozzle shapes (directionsof jetting) were also examined. The effect of these parameters on press-in time wasanalyzed, and the mechanisms were discussed qualitatively.
Matthew Carter, Fiona Gooch
None

Investigation into pressure bulbs
The resistance on the base of thesheet pile during press-in wasobtained by measuring the strain
due to the hoop stress around theholes in the base of the sheet pile,
as shown in Picture 1. The unit baseresistance in dense sand wasapproximately constant at 35MPa,
beyond a penetration depth of 3m,of the same order of magnitude as
the crushing strength of coarse
sand.
Picture 1
David White, Peter Kirkham, Naomi
Lyons
White, D. J., 1998. Deep penetration in sand. M.Eng. Project Report, Cambridge University
Department of Engineering, 51p.

Press-in force and pile type / Press-in speed
The press-in force during press-in was compared using U-shaped sheet piles, H-shaped
sheet piles and open ended tubular piles. Two press-in rates were adopted. An attempt
to estimate the press-in force based on CPT data was discussed, and the necessity ofconsidering the effect of soil plug in the pan of the sheet pile was pointed out.
Peter Kirkham, Haramrita Sidhu
None

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Volume 2, Issue 2 June 2017
■ [1999-2000]
Project title
Outline of tests in Kochi::

Main students
Related publications::■ [2000-2001]
Project title
Outline of tests in Kochi::

Main students
Related publications::■ [2001-2002]
Project title
Outline of tests in Kochi::

Main students
Related publications::■ [2002-2003]
Project title
Outline of tests in Kochi::

Measurement of soil plug strength
The phenomenon of plugging was investigated using
a split tubular pile. The pile was pressed-in,extracted and separated into two, as shown in
Picture 2, so that the inner soil column could bedirectly observed. The creation, dissolution and recreation of the soil plug during press-in wasconfirmed, and the mechanism of the creation ofsoil plug was discussed.
Haramrita Sidhu, Timothy Finlay
White, D. J., Sidhu, H. K., Finlay, C. R., Bolton, M. D.
and Nagayama, T., 2000. Press-in piling: theinfluence of plugging on driveability. 8thInternational Conference of the Deep Foundations
Institute, New York, pp. 299-310.

Picture 2

Friction cutter / Strain measurement
A double-walled tubular pile,
shown in Picture 3, was pressed-in
to investigate the horizontal earthpressure on the internal surface ofthe pile. Piles with and without
friction cutters on their base werealso pressed-in, to investigate theireffect on reducing the press-inforce. The friction cutter reduced
the shaft resistance but had littleeffect on the base resistance during
press-in.
Timothy Finlay, Yueyang Zhao
Picture 3
Finlay, T. C. R., 2001. Press-in piling:noise, vibration and the relief ofhard driving. M.Eng. Project Report, Cambridge University Department of Engineering,
49p.
Finlay, T. C. R., White, D. J., Bolton, M. D. and Nagayama, T., 2001. Press-in piling: theinstallation of instrumented steel tubular piles with and without driving shoes. 5thInternational Conference on Deep Foundation Practice, Singapore, 1, pp. 199-208.

Press-in force and bearing capacity
A double-tubed tubular pile was pressed-in. The static vertical load test was conducted
and its bearing capacity was measured.
Yueyang Zhao, Gulin Yetginer
Zhao, Y., 2002. Pile set-up in sand. M.Eng. Project Report, Cambridge University
Department of Engineering, 48p.
Zhao, Y. & White, D. J., 2006. A model-scale investigation into ‘set-up’ of displacement
piles in sand. Physical Modelling in Geotechnics - 6th ICPMG, pp. 889-894.

Features of pressed-in group piles / Vibration measurement / Time effectOpen-ended tubular piles with an outer diameter of 101.6mm were pressed-in as a cellfoundation in a square or a circular manner. A static vertical load test was conducted as20

Volume 2, Issue 2 June 2017

Main students:

Related publications:■ [2003-2004]
Project title
Outline of tests in Kochi::

Main students
Related publications::

shown in Picture 4, and the groupeffect on the press-in force andthe bearing capacity of thesepressed-in piles was investigated.
The press-in force increased withthe progress of the constructionof the cell foundation. The group
efficiency in terms of the bearing
capacity, if the capacity of thesingle pile was taken as the pressin force of the first pile in thegroup, was slightly greater thanbut almost equal to unity.
David Rockhill, Gulin Yetginer,
Andrew Deeks
Picture 4White, D. J., Finlay, T. C. R., Bolton,
M. D. and Bears, G., 2002. Press-in piling: ground vibration and noise during pile
installation. Proceedings of the International Deep Foundations Congress, Orlando, USA,ASCE Special Publication 116, pp. 363-371.
Yetginer, A. G., 2003. Press-in piling. M.Eng. Project Report, Cambridge University
Department of Engineering, 50p.
Rockhill, D., 2003. Ground vibrations due to construction operations. M.Eng. Project
Report, Cambridge University Department of Engineering, 46p.
Rockhill, D. J., Bolton, M. D. and White, D. J., 2003. Ground-borne vibrations due to pressin piling operations. BGA International Conference on Foundations: Innovations,Observations, Design and Practice.
Yetginer, A. G., White, D. J. and Bolton, M. D., 2003. Press-in piling: field testing of cellfoundations. BGA International Conference on Foundations: Innovations, Observations,
Design and Practice.
Yetginer, A. G., White, D. J., Bolton, M. D., 2006. Field measurements of the stiffness ofjacked piles and pile groups. Geotechnique 56, No. 5, pp. 349-354.

Load test on groups of pressed-in piles
Open-ended tubular piles with an outer diameter of 101.6mm were pressed-in in acircular manner. Two circular groups of piles were constructed, one with a constantembedment depth (Figure 1 (a)) and the other with two different embedment depths foreach pile (Figure 1 (b)). The bearing capacity of these groups were comparable, eventhough the embedment depth of some piles in group (b) was smaller than the other piles.
The group efficiency in terms of the bearing capacity, if the capacity of the single pile wastaken as the press-in force of the first pile in the group and the capacity of the pile group
was taken as the plunging load, was approximately equal to unity. On the other hand, thestiffness of the group decreased with the increasing number of piles in the group.
Andrew Deeks, Melvin Hibberd
Deeks, A. D., 2004. An investigation into the strength and stiffness of jacked, driven andbored piles. M.Eng. Project Report, Cambridge University Department of Engineering,
51p.
Deeks, A. D., White, D. J. and Bolton, M. D., 2006. A comparison of jacked, driven andbored piles in sand. The 16thInternational Conference on
Soil
Mechanicsandba
GeotechnicalEngineering,Osaka, Japan, pp. 1685-1688.

Figure 1 (Deeks (2004))
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