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Hollow Spun Piles

Hollow Spun Piles

Hollow Spun Piles

(OP)
Anyone have experience with hollow-spun piles (my situation being for floating marinas, so subjected to cyclic loading).  I have heard that the spot-welding of the spiral cage to the prestressing strands causes low-fatigue life(?)  A brief internet search revealed only foreign manufacturers of these piles; does that mean there is no current American standard, ASTM or otherwise?  Also, a name of US manufacturer would be helpful.  Thank you,

RE: Hollow Spun Piles

Are these the cyclindrical, or tapered, variety?  Any prestress?

RE: Hollow Spun Piles

(OP)
Cylindrical, (no taper), prestressed.  

RE: Hollow Spun Piles

Sorry for the brain-dead question about prestress. (Duh!)

I don't know if either of these firms manufacture what you seek, but it's a start: Raymond International and Sherman Utility Poles.  Sherman was recently purchased - can't recall who bought them out.  Raymond used to make some monster spun cast concrete piles (65 inch diameter, and at least 124 feet long.)  Sherman makes 60 ft long tapered poles - primarily for electrical distribution/transmission.

RE: Hollow Spun Piles

I think these come from Malaysia and exported world wide. They are not made to ACI code; at least the ones I am familiar with. According to their literature that I have, they are supposed to perform well.

RE: Hollow Spun Piles

I would be concerned about welding spirals to prestressing cables.  Not a good idea.  Significantly different materials, welding would likely be done after prestressing (otherwise they'll pop loose!), and the change in prestressing after the welding is not clearly definable or quantifiable.

Many "good" ideas perform well for a long time because they are never subjected to the design conditions.  I would want to see some test data, particularly cyclic loading.

Hughes in Central Florida used to produce a spun-cast utility pole. Don't know if they still do or if they produce piles.

RE: Hollow Spun Piles

There are some companies in Malaysia, Korea and Vietnam manufacture this product. It has been used widely for some industrial project in the Southeast Asia. We've just finished a project which used this kind of pile. Good performance, good test result. But i do not know that It will be OK with cyclic loading or not. But since it was used for the turbine foundation of power plant, it may be OK
I also could not find ACI or ASTM code about the hollow pile, but i have a copy of Korean standard here specifed for hollow pile. No cyclic test procedure is shown in the standard.
To get more information about hollow spun pile go to www.pci.org
If you need the name of manufacture companies out side US i will forward to you some.

RE: Hollow Spun Piles

Sherman Utility Structures changed its name to Newmark in 1998. They manufacture spun prestressed concrete poles mainly for the electrical transmission market. All of their products are tapered poles. I am pretty sure they are not going to be able to provide piles. Try Gulf Coast Pre-Stress (www.gcprestress.com).
Additionally, welding on or anywhere around prestressed strands should not be allowed. It doesn't take much heat to burn completely through one of these cables, and even weld splatter can cause the strands to break during tensioning.

RE: Hollow Spun Piles

We are looking at possibly using some spun prestressed piles for a 3 story office building building on dirty water, as I like to call the soil in Florida.

The local pile guy suggested them, I was thinking precast square concrete piles.  Anyway, they are from Malaysia.  The website is http://www.icpb.com/

They appear to have good performance numbers.  Plus, they are cheaper than domestic produced products, which I can't believe.  I was told about $16/ft installed.

To answer some other comments made above, they are prestressing bars not cable, apparently, and the cage is prewelded by an automated machine before prestressing.  Since the confining reinforcing is sprial wound around the bars, it can stretch as the rods are prestressed.  

Don't know about code requirements yet, though.  BUT, the concrete strength is great, over 11 ksi compressive strength.

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