October 2, 2019 ITS Money: Van Komurka, P.E., D. GE, F.ASCE

Van Komurka, P.E., D. GE, F.ASCE | GRL Engineers, Inc.

Savings from Testing the Driven-Pile Foundation for a High-Rise Building

The project consists of a 33-story building with two levels of below-grade parking across the entire building footprint. Teamwork among all involved resulted in an efficient, cost-effective, high-capacity driven-pile foundation on a constrained urban site with significantly variable subsurface conditions. A pre-production test program was performed on 16-inch-diameter closed-end steel pipe piles that were filled with concrete once installed. The results resulted in more-accurate pile capacity assessment, which reduced both cost and schedule duration.

Findings

• Savings from increased testing, resulting in lower safety factors and higher allowable loads, far exceeded the cost of testing.
• Savings from testing for and incorporating set-up into design and installation far exceeds the cost of testing for set-up.
• Testing for and incorporating set-up saved more production-driving time than the testing required.