Major vibration source during vibratory sheet pile driving – Shaft versus toe

• Due to increasing demand to maintain vibration levels below strict limits during construction, it is important to develop a better understanding of how vibrations emanate from the shaft and the toe during vibratory sheet pile driving. It is still unclear whether it is the shaft or the toe that contributes the most regarding induced ground vibration levels. A sheet pile shaft has a significantly larger area compared to the toe area. It is therefore expected that the shaft would contribute the more significantly. However, results from full scale field studies have shown that the sheet pile toe also has a large influence on ground vibration levels as the toe passes measurement points buried in the ground close to the vibrodriven sheet piles. This paper employs a numerical model developed to investigate the hypothesis that most of the ground vibrations emanate from the shaft during vibratory sheet pile driving. The results indicate during driving in clay the contribution from the toe and shaft to ground vibration depends on the sheet pile penetration depth, with the shaft dominating vertical ground vibrations for large penetration depths. 

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik -- Geoteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering -- Geotechnical Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Ground vibrations

Numerical modelling

Sheet pile

Vibratory driving

Geotechnical engineering

Pile driving

Soil mechanics

Field studies

Ground vibration

Measurement points

Sheet piles

Vibration level

Vibration sources

Piles

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)