What are Steel Sheet Piles?
Saturday, May 17th, 2008Steel Sheet Piles -A Brief Introduction
Steel sheet piles are interlocking steel panels driven into the ground to form a wall. The installation of sheet piles can be carried out with impact or vibratory hammers. Sheet piling has been used in the construction industry for years.
Steel sheet piles are used in temporary works such as forming a temporary wall to support excavation in soft or water logged soil for the construction of cofferdams or basement. Steel sheet piles can also be used to form permanent retaining walls especially those used for river bank strengthening and in the construction of jetties. They can also be used to form part of the permanent wall of building basement where they are casted together with the basement concrete wall.
The three common forms of steel sheet pile walls are the Larssen/Larseen, Frodingham and straight web piles. All these have interlocking joints that can formed an effective water seal. Straight web piles are mainly used to form cellular cofferdams. Steel sheet piles can come in various lengths of up to 18m.
Beside steel the sheet can be made from a variety of materials such as vinyl, plastic, wood, recast concrete and, fiberglass. The most recent addition to the sheet pile family is the vinyl sheets. These vinyl sheets, with imperious sealants, have made this a very attractive technology for the cutoff or containment of contaminated groundwater flow in the environmental industry.
