Piles through soft ground
Geotechnical and Structural
- Ground
- Soft organic soil
- Method
- Cone penetrometer testing to depth
- Scope
- Bored piles to a competent layer
- Outcome
- One consent package
Soft, compressible ground will not carry a slab evenly, and no amount of reinforcement in the concrete changes what is underneath it. The investigation went deep enough to find the competent layer and to say how far down it sat.
The structure is carried on bored piles taken to that layer and spanning between them, so the load bypasses the soft material entirely. The pile depth is a number the ground gave up under testing, not a number assumed from a neighbouring site.
Because the same practice held the geotechnical and the structural work, the pile layout and the structure above it were designed together and went to consent as one package.
Cages are tied to the schedule before the pour, with cover checked at the edges
In situ testing is what set the pile depth, before any of this was drawn
The section is drawn from the logged ground, so the pile toe sits in a layer that was measured
The structure above spans between pile caps rather than bearing on the soft material
