Temporary Sheet Piled Cofferdam with vibratory and silent and vibration-free piling methods
They say what goes up must come down. In sheet piling, sometimes what goes in must come out! One of the fantastic things about sheet piling as a flexible retaining wall system is that piles can easily be recovered once the structure has been built and the area back-filled.
On this 5-star hotel project a large 60m x 150m by 5.0m deep cofferdam was required to enable the construction of a new basement substructure. The 10.5m ‘U’ piles were initially driven with a combination of Leader Rig and a Silent and Vibration-free Press. Upon completion of the substructure the piles were available to be extracted.
For reasons of access the piles were all pulled with our Kowan Stillworkers. In our opinion this is a far safer method that the more traditional crane suspended methods as all work is executed at ground level. Other than handling the Stillworker, you do not need a large crane with large lifting capabilities as the crane only lifts and stacks the individual sheets. On some very restricted sites we have used a tower crane to enable even more piles to be extracted.
Once the piles are removed they are returned to our yard for cleaning and trimming to be used again on another project. In sheet piling, recycling has been part of our operation for decades.