Existing guidance on the installation of screw piles suggest that they should be installed in a pitch-matched manner to avoid disturbance to the soil which may have a detrimental effect on the in-service performance of the pile. Recent insights from centrifuge modelling have shown that installing screw piles in this way requires large vertical compressive (or crowd) forces, which is inconsistent with the common assumption that screw piles pull themselves into the ground requiring minimal vertical compressive force. In this paper, through the use of the Discrete Element Method (DEM), the effects of advancement ratio, i.e. the ratio between the vertical displacement per rotation to the geometric pitch of the helix of the screw pile helix, on the installation resistance and in-service capacity of a screw pile is investigated. The findings are further used to assess the applicability of empirical torque capacity correlation factors for large diameter screw piles. The results of the investigation show that it is possible to reduce the required vertical compressive installation force by 96% by reducing the advancement ratio and that although over-flighting a screw pile can decrease the subsequent compressive capacity, it appears to increase the tensile capacity significantly.

Deep foundations maybe used in a range of soil types where significant foundation resistance is required but their installation is often associated with disturbance due to noise and vibration. Greater restrictions on use in urban and offshore environments is now commonplace. Screw piles and rotary jacked straight shafted piles are two potential methods of silent piling that could be used as alternative foundation solution, but the effects of certain geometric and installation properties such as installation pitch i.e. the ratio between vertical displacement and rotation, on the required installation torque and force in sand are not well understood. In this paper the effects of installation pitch and base geometry on the installation requirements of a straight shafted pile are simulated in 3D using the discrete element method (DEM). The installation requirements of straight shafted piles into sand have been validated against centrifuge testing, in three different relative densities. The DEM shows reductions in installation force can be achieved by increasing the installation pitch or including a conical tip. An existing cone penetration test (CPT) based prediction method for installation requirements has been improved to include the effects of installation pitch and base geometry for rotary installed piles in sand.

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Screw anchors have been recognised as an innovative solution to support offshore jacket structures and floating systems, due to their low noise installation and potential enhanced uplift capacity. Results published in the literature have shown that for both fixed and floating applications, the tension capacity is critical for design but may be poorly predicted by current empirical design approaches. These methods also do not capture the load-displacement behaviour, which is critical for quantifying performance under working loads. In this paper, a Finite Element methodology has been developed to predict the full tensile load-displacement response of screw anchors installed in sand for practical use, incorporating the effects of a pitch-matched installation. The methodology is based on a two-step process. An initial simulation, based on wished-in-place conditions, enables the identification of the failure mechanism as well as the shear strain distribution at failure. A second simulation refines the anchor capacity using soil-soil interface finite elements along the failure surface previously identified and also models installation through successive loading/unloading of the screw anchor at different embedment depths. The methodology is validated against previously published centrifuge test results. A simplified numerical approach has been derived to approximate the results in a single step.

Control of screw pile installation to optimise performance for offshore energy applications. Géotechnique.