Restricted Access Piling is where piling methods are carried out in logistically challenging locations or complex urban areas. Historically referred to as mini piling, it can also be referred to as micro piling.
What is restricted access piling?
Restricted access piling provides a range of piling and other geotechnical solutions in operationally constrained, restricted environments such as inside existing buildings, under bridges and in tunnels and basements, as well as off-track rail environments.
Restricted access can in many instances include restrictions both in terms of width, height and weight, with height restrictions as low as 2.4m.
This work is carried out by our fleet of smaller, more specifically equipped rigs where large, heavy conventional plant cannot be used. Typically with much lower bearing pressures. A broad range of drilled piling techniques are adopted suited to nearly all ground conditions and include:
- Sectional Flight Auger Piling (SFA)
- Rotary Bored Piling
- Rotary Percussive Drilling (Including Elemex, Supa Jaws overburden drilling)
- Contiguous retaining walls
- Secant retaining walls
- Kingpost retaining walls
- Bottom and top driven steel tubes
- Sheet piled retaining walls
- Mini & Micro Piling
- Self-drilled Hollow Bar
- Restricted Access Piling & Underpinning
- Helical Piles
Additionally, we offer soil nails and ground anchors for slope stabilisation and drilling and grouting techniques for ground stabilisation projects required for large civil engineering projects, such as motorway expansion and embankment cutting, as well as new-build residential schemes.
Our Hütte and Klemm rigs use several different down-the-hole tools (including Duplex and Odex systems and Elemex hammers) to form piles of up to 900mm in diameter to depths of 35m.
Our helical piling specialists, ScrewFast foundations make up part of our specialist piling services.
Key rig capabilities:
- Rig loadings: 1–40 tonnes
- Pile diameters as follows: 100-1500mm diameter
- Rotary percussive for piles up to 900mm diameter
- Duplex rotary percussive for piles up to 900mm with 1050mm casing
- Superjaws casing advancement systems for rotary percussive for piles up to 813mm in diameter
- Elemex Super Jaws DTH (down the hole hammer) for permanently cased piles up to 1000mm diameter
- ODEX piles up to 323mm
Why Van Elle?
We provide customers with a differentiated and highly professional service, including:
- Integrated capability – an end-to-end service from ground investigation to the largest types of foundation engineering
- The UK’s largest fleet of specialist rigs
- A dedicated team – we deploy a directly employed workforce of more than 400 highly trained operatives
- Innovation – we invest 10% of our expenditure in developing new techniques and applications
- Expertise – we provide more than 25 geotechnical, ground improvement and piling techniques across the Group