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CORK CITY CENTRE
'Ground Breaking' Technology Sheet Piling (UK) Ltd are on site and have been awarded the Design & Installation of sheet piles to form a large permanent basement structure in Cork City Centre, for Principle Contractor Bowen Construction Ltd.
The design indicated , requirement for approximately 430no Nippon Steel IIIW and IVW Sheet Piles in 12.0m long lengths. Existing buildings surround the site and at each end of the basement piles are situated within 1.5m of very old building of Historical Importance. As such, the client, O'CaIIaghan Properties, imposed restrictions limiting the vibration levels to less than 3.0mm ppv.
The soil types at site Location comprise of made ground overlaying soft peaty silt to approximately 3.0m depth, over medium dense slightly sand gravels with cobbles and boulders. Such soils can prove impossible to penetrate by 'conventional' pile pressing equipment and this method had in fact failed in the past, in similar soils on a Cork City Centre site.
However SPUK Ltd, working with specialist manufacturers Giken Japan, have demonstrated that even these types of soils now present no problems for the 'SUPER CRUSH PILE PRESS', Niall Vaughan, Acoustic Consultant for AWN Consulting, said "AWN Consulting Ltd was commissioned to undertake independent noise and vibration monitoring.
Throughout the five week pilling operations the maximum recorded level of vibrations was 2.41mm/s at 8,6Hz. This level was recorded when the piling rig was approximately 3m from the vibration meter. The average noise levels, LAeq, taken over several complete pile driving operations were 74dB(A) at 2m. From our experience both the noise and vibration levels emanating from the Giken Silent Piling rig would compare extremely favourably with other piling methods that we have monitored."
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