Driven steel piles are installed using impact or vibration hammers to a design depth or resistance. Keller installs the complete suite of driven piles from small diameter tube piles to large diameter steel cassions to support your project.

Driven steel tubes

Common uses

Provide structural support
Provide earth retention
Foundations for new buildings (residential and commercial)
Infrastructure
Floor slabs and load transfer platforms
Bridge abutments and piers
Where ground conditions are highly variable as they are driven to a set or pre-determined resistance
Regeneration sites where a legacy of obstructions would otherwise damage pre-cast concrete piles
On contaminated sites where spoil disposal can be costly

Process

Driven piles gain geotechnical capacity efficiently by displacing the soil around the shaft and compacting the soils at the toe during installation. Steel tubes can be driven either closed or open ended.  The energy to drive the piles is provided by either a high frequency oscillating hammer or a percussion hammer . If penetration of dense soil is necessary and it is often desirable to reduce the required installation energy, pre-drilling may be required for the pile to reach the design depth. The finished foundation element is designed to resist either or all of the imposed compressive, uplift, and lateral loads.

Driven piles can also be used to provide lateral support for earth retention walls. Sheet piles are the most common type of driven piles for this application.

Advantages

When small diameter piles are used to support structural floor slabs, they are quick to install and can be installed with an integral pile cap to reduce the punching force on the slab
Offer significant load capacities
Avoid the need to dispose of spoil associated with displacement piling
Extensive range of pile sizes, typically from 340mm to 2400mm diameter
Potential to overcome hard bands or minor obstructions
Provides a self-sealing displacement pile which limits contamination pathways to the surface which can occur with other piling techniques
Can be used in aggressive soil conditions

Quality assurance

We have extensive experience with driven steel piles, evolving the technique to ensure that high quality standards are achieved at all times.

We deliver consistently high quality results whilst constructing driven piles. Our Federal Safety Commision (FSC) accreditation, company standards, processes, policies and procedures have been specifically developed to deliver this, incorporating innovations like the continuous pile monitoring system that produces an electronic record of the pile installation by recording the key installation metrics using on board telemetry. Within all industry sectors Keller works strictly to Australian Standards along with the relevant project or industry specifications (DTMR, RMS, VIC Roads, Main Roads WA etc).

Keller can offer fully qualified in house design via certified engineers that can deliver quality piling and ground improvement solutions. Our design and engineering certification capability includes offering static tests, dynamic pile testing, continuous driving testing inclinometer testing and comprehensive propping/bracing and anchor design to complete the full QA package.