Secant Piling Contractors
Schnabel, a nationwide design-build firm, is a trusted secant piling contractor renowned for constructing dependable and structurally secure secant pile walls. These walls are effectively used for both excavation support and groundwater barriers.
Employing the use of particularly rigid overlapping shafts, secant pile walls create a continuous concrete wall. The drilling process of the secant pile shafts is handled by specialty drills capable of maintaining the crucial alignment required for optimal effectiveness of a secant pile wall. The shafts are typically 2 to 4 feet in diameter. Secant piles bear a similarity to tangent piles; however, unlike secant piles, tangent piles’ shafts merely touch and do not overlap.
With decades worth of experience crafting custom solutions for earth and water retention, the expertise of these secant piling contractors makes it possible to deliver secant walls tailored to help you overcome your toughest construction challenges.
SECANT PILE SOLUTIONS
Secant piles form a part of a solid, resilient system that amalgamates earth retention and groundwater barrier walls. The construction of such walls by secant pilling contractors involves the drilling of alternating primary (drilled first) and secondary (drilled second) overlapping shafts to create a solid secant wall. The concrete employed in these shafts can be either entirely low-strength, high-strength, or a mixture of low-strength primary and high-strength secondary shafts. The secondary shafts often incorporate steel piles or reinforcing steel. Moreover, unreinforced high-strength shafts can also be created in a self-supporting circular ring, a common selection for tunnel access shafts.
Secant pile walls, being relatively impermeable, serve to control the ingress of groundwater into an excavation and lessen the draw down outside of it. Their exceptional rigidity makes them a preferred choice when delicate structures are situated behind the wall.
One of the upsides of utilizing secant piles for constructing cutoff walls is Schnabel’s high-torque drill rigs’ ability to navigate through challenging drilling conditions while also casing the drill hole. These drill rigs possess the ability to push a cased hole through both natural and man-made deterrents, such as cobbles, boulders, and reinforced concrete. This makes the secant pile method a highly versatile and effective solution for complex construction scenarios.
When challenging drilling environments are foreseen, secant piles present a highly cost-effective strategy for creating cutoff walls. Another significant advantage is their relatively lower mobilization cost compared to other sorts of cutoff walls, such as slurry walls and soil mix walls. To gain further understanding of whether employing a secant wall is the optimum solution for your project, you can reach out to one of Schnabel’s eight regional branches today.
Always innovating new approaches to better solve old problems.
Rondout West Branch Bypass Tunnel Shaft
Schnabel installed secant piles in a self-supporting circular ring to support the construction of a new bypass tunnel to allow water to flow under the Hudson River to New York City after an older tunnel started to leak.
Barnes-Jewish Hospital
Schnabel designed and constructed a secant pile wall for the Barnes-Jewish Hospital Parkview Tower on the Washington University Medical Campus in St. Louis, Missouri. The perimeter secant wall served as both the permanent structural basement wall and the temporary earth-retention system for the new hospital building.
In 31 years of building deep foundation projects for Schnabel, building a 90’ deep reinforced circular shaft was one that was very challenging and deeply rewarding. Looking forward to working on the next one with our client Schiavone.
