Kiev, Ukraine

Ukraine is a country steeped in history and tradition but since gaining independence in 1991, the country has been taking steps to modernise.

Our projects have taken us to the capitol city of Ukraine, Kiev (Kyiv). This beautiful historic city is now a thriving modern metropolis. This was the location of an interesting project undertaken in the heart of the Solomenka District opposite the Voksal Central Train Station.

On one of the projects, the requirements were that the test pile should be founded in the underlying clay and marl formations and the sandy soil deposits above the marl should be isolated from the loading. Conventional top-down techniques would not be possible unless measures were taken to provide a friction free length of 26 metres through the sandy overburden.

To ascertain the properties and loading characteristics of the soil strata, it was considered that a multi-level bi-directional test would be most appropriate. The test pile consisted of an 880 mm auger bored pile with multilevel O cell® assemblies located at depths of 0.5 m and 5.5 m above the pile toe. Each assembly was made up of 2 number 330 mm diameter O-cells. The pile was bored to a depth of 37.80 m with the final concrete level stopped approximately 26 m below ground level.

The test procedure required the top section to be loaded first using the lower shaft friction and end resistance as reaction. After expansion of almost 100mm the cells were unloaded and left to drain creating a gap between the upper and lower pile sections approximately 5.5 metres from the pile toe. The lower O cells were then pressurized to evaluate the skin friction of the mid section using the base as reaction. Once the mid-section had moved upwards by approximately 100 mm, the top section re-engaged to provide additional reaction to determine the end bearing capacity. The test was completed once the O-cells in the bottom assembly had opened to their full 150mm expansion.
A subsequent project was for the bi-directional load testing of a barrette to 90MN which performed brilliantly and the foundation design was optimised accordingly.

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Kiev, Ukraine