Nano-cement could make concrete piles intelligent
Concrete piles could, in the future, provide feedback about the condition of the ground around them, or the building that they support.
We have looked several times at how changing soil conditions can be bad news for pile foundations, as shifts in density and hidden underground cracks can affect their ability to bear a load.
However, engineering research at the University of Houston could soon make nano-cement – a cementitious substance that contains piezomaterials – a reality in the years to come.
The research is currently looking at options for using the material in the drilling of offshore oil wells, but the same principles could also be applied to concrete piles.
By adding nanoscale fragments of iron, calcium and silica to cement, it can be made to change electrically when it undergoes a change of temperature or is exposed to mechanical stress.
“It’s sort of like your skin – when someone touches your skin, you can feel it; you can feel the pressure,” says the developer, Cumaraswamy Vipulanandan.
By using this to provide feedback to the builders above, oil drills – and perhaps ultimately piling rigs too – can alert the workmen to any unusual conditions below, and allow construction to halt if a crack or leak occurs.
Concrete piles tap into Edison’s ingenuity
Concrete piles might not live up to Thomas Edison’s vision of a single-part concrete house, but they benefit from much of the same logic that went into his 1917 patent.
In that year, Edison patented a system by which seamless concrete dwellings could be created, using a mould the size of a house to contain the concrete until it set.
Several examples of this approach remain in the area around Edison’s factory at West Orange – and show how the US inventor was as focused on single-material construction as his avant-garde European counterparts around the same time.
Now, Matt Burgermaster, an assistant professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, is using similar principles to design and build ‘ice houses’, igloo-like structures with excellent sustainability credentials.
He calls Edison’s single-pour, moulded concrete concept “a forward-thinking approach to the integration of building design and construction” and a source of inspiration for “the creation of a more sustainable built environment”.
While concrete piles are just one component in a structure, they can have similarly beneficial sustainability credentials.
For instance, CFA piles can be poured into a drilled hole and reinforced once in place, before they set – creating a single-pour foundation with excellent strength, and with minimal disruption to the surrounding landscape and environment.
Badger-tracking technology could help see through concrete piles
Technology that was invented to track badgers could help provide GPS-like imaging in underground environments, including those built between concrete piles.
GPS is effective above the ground, but below the surface, materials like concrete piles used in foundations, along with rock and dense soil, can cause problems.
Now a team at the University of Oxford is working on a solution, using badger-tracking technology, which could help emergency services personnel locate people trapped underground in the future.
The system uses very low frequency fields and is effective at penetrating rock, soil and concrete even where there is a thick layer of the substance.
As such, it could be a useful way of seeing through pile foundations when people are trapped, or even simply to provide an indoor equivalent to GPS in public places like airports.
“The aim is to incorporate the new technology into smart mobile devices; a demonstrator on an Android platform is being developed,” the university reports on its science blog.
In the years to come, the innovation could help in emergency responses to major incidents, like the 2005 London bombings, in which victims in the affected London Underground stations were difficult to locate with existing technology.
Heavy-duty pile foundations can cope with industrial projects
A rapid rise in industrial construction project starts could have demand at a recent high for heavy-duty pile foundations capable of bearing substantial loads.
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show a significant growth in private industrial new work in the first quarter of 2012.
With the overall construction sector up by 4.6% over the previous three-month reporting period, private industrial contracts grew by more than ten times that amount.
The 57.9% increase in industrial work is likely to have seen heavy-duty pile foundations under renewed demand, while private commercial new work also rose by 27.8% over the same period.
In respect of the long term, new orders remain relatively subdued, but the ONS admits that the recent data form a “volatile series” with sizeable short-term changes.
When such volatility leads to rapid increases in orders in a specific segment of the sector, pile driving contractors are quick to respond in order to ensure that piling rigs are available where they are needed.
By providing piling rigs for industrial-scale projects, pile driving contractors not only help to keep these projects on track, but also ensure the industry as a whole can sustain any long-term growth.
Pile driving contractors can extend MPA’s safety support for SMEs
The Mineral Products Association (MPA) has been praised for its commitment to safety – a principle that pile driving contractors help to extend to construction sites when called in to lay concrete piles.
Foundation piling is a skilled process, and pile driving contractors are able to work on a site to lay concrete piles quickly, safely and effectively.
In addition, by hiring professionals to carry out foundation piling, building contractors are assured of a high-quality finish, and do not place any of their own construction workers at risk.
The whole process reflects the industry’s commitment to safety – something the MPA has just received a RoSPA award for.
RoSPA, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, granted its SME Assistance Trophy to the MPA in recognition of its ‘Safer by…’ schemes.
These include: Safer by Sharing, a series of regional seminars; Safer by Association, a tool for conducting site audits; Safer by Competence, an industry-wide commitment to competence; and Safer by Design, a voluntary guidance scheme for re-engineered and new mobile plant.
Martin Isles, director of health and safety at the MPA, says: “MPA’s membership is a ‘broad church’. As such, we strive hard to satisfy all members, particularly in the field of developing demonstrable personal competence.”