EngMan40
Civil/Environmental
- Jan 11, 2009
- 66
Contractor wants to backfill the caissons for the soldier piles with stone or sand instead of 100 or 200 psi flowable fill. He thinks this is the only way he can retrieve the steel piles. The original design of the 12 ft cantilever system was with 2 ft diameter, 13 ft long caisson backfilled with flowable fill. The material around the caisson is dense to very dense sand and gravel. His design is 2 ft diameter, 5 ft long caisson filled with AASHTO No. 57. or No. 10 with a raker at top. My initial thought that the backfill material in the caisson will not be as compacted as the natural soil and it will reduce the width of the embedded part to width of pile with reduced friction angle, . Anyone analyzed such system or saw it constructed before? your thoughts.