Weak Soil Foundation Solution

The difficult soil conditions make them weaker and demand robust solutions for any foundations to be placed there. What makes the soils weak are if they are compressible, collapsible and expansive. It is essential to identify the nature of the soil and the potential problems before working on the possible solutions for those difficult soils.

Different types of weak soils

Clays/Silts/Peats soil are often found near the mouths of rivers and along the bays. They are also present in swamps or lagoons and carry high organic content. The low-lying locations of these weaker soils can be especially troublesome as they are prone to flooding. Hence, before making any buildings, foundation or roadways, the grade level of these soil must be elevated by adding compressed fill to build strength in them. Loose saturated sand deposits are often located in seismically active regions and are prone to liquefaction during a strong ground motion. Engineers who deal with soil mechanics devise a simple sorting system that tells the engineer the properties of a given soil. The classification system identifies soils based on their plasticity and textural qualities.

Weak soil foundation

One solution for weak soil foundation is by making deep foundations that go beyond the weak and compressible soils. Still, it is essential to add fill to raise the quality and grade of these soils. The geotechnical engineer must look at the delicate situations before coming to any conclusions. The potential difficulty with these soils is that they will continue to experience settlement and pull down on the deep foundations with their negative “down drag”. Pile caps can be used to get rid of this potential problem.

Working with pile caps

In order to improve the results when using pile caps to build a foundation on weaker soils, the piles can be covered with a lubricating agent so as to lower the friction with the soil. Large diameter predrilled shafts can be sued to drive in piles so that the soil does not cave in. Large diameter low displacement pipe piles are ideal for driving through the weak and compressible soils.  One should wait until the soils have consolidated before making any foundations.

Working with Helical Piles

Helical Piles are aloes referred to as helical piers and carry one to four-helix plates. The Piles resemble one pitch of a screw and act like an auger that bores into the ground. The helix plates are fused onto a shaft and are available in a range of sizes to lodge different load conditions and applications. Each steel pile is hot-dip galvanized in order to increase the product life and for a feasible solution. It is the lead section that gets drilled in and reaches a depths of 5-10 feet. Additional helices can be added if there is a need to go deeper and with the use of helical extensions.   Helical Piles are used in a wide variety of projects and have been found suitable for different types of soil conditions.

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