When you have a fixed connection between the pile and pile cap, a moment develops at the top of the pile due to the restrain that the cap imposses on the rotation of the top of the pile. If you have a free ended pile (pinned connection), the pile will rotate freely at its top about the axis...
I am not sure of what you are trying to build, but I pressume that the rock is surficial or very shallow since you require the footings to be embedded in the hard stratum. If this is the case, the project will require excavating through the rock for the installation of underground utility...
I hadn't though of it that way. Unfortunately, the owner is very capricious, as usual, and is not very open to modifications in their conceptual design section. They would not want to have cross braces for lateral support above the water line because it looks too "woody" and stuff along those...
Thanks for the input. It is a docking project and we have been considering driving the piles upside down as you suggested. The reason I was trying to stay away from this solution is because the project calls for various different unsupported pile lenghts which will produce various total pile...
I have a dock project that requires the use of 12" timber (greenheart) piles with relatively high (7 ton) uplift capacity. The subsurface conditions consist mainly of a thin layer of sand (5 feet or so) underlain by weak fragmented limestone. In order to attain the required uplift capacity we...
