Pile Load Tests of Large Diameter Battered Steel Pipe Piles Constructed in an Offshore Area

Battered piles were driven for the foundation of Gwang-An grand bridge in Pusan, Korea. The bridge foundation consists of 8 to 12 piles and each one is composed of two materials. The outer part of the pile consists of a 28 mm thick with a diameter of 2500 mm while the inner part is filled with concrete. The construction of pile is performed through three steps. First, the steel pipe is driven using the hydraulic vibrating hammer on the jack-up barge. The next step is digging out the soil and rock about 6 meters deeper than the toe of the steel pipe using RCD equipment. The final step is pouring concrete through the tremie pipe. Each pile is designed to bear 1500 ton and the pile end is to be located on the soft rock. The end of 3 piles are, however, located on the weathered rock because of the workability of the RCD equipment. In order to verify the allowable bearing capacity of these piles, several pile load tests were carried out.