Contiguous Pile Walls

What are Contiguous Pile Walls?

Contiguous pile retaining walls are constructed using CFA or bored piling methods and are an ideal retaining wall solution for urban areas as they can be constructed without encroaching on adjacent properties. These walls can be constructed to provide load-bearing capacity as well as a retaining structure where line loads can be applied to the wall or additional piles to form caps.

Contiguous pile walls are ideal when groundwater ingress is not an issue for the finished wall. This type of retaining wall is used on a wide range of engineering projects such as ground stabilisation, underpasses, and basement walls. Here at Aarsleff Ground Engineering, we have the specialist plant and team to install Contiguous Pile Retaining Walls and benefit from having significant experience in designing, installing, and testing contiguous piled retaining walls in a variety of diameters and locations across Northern Europe.

Contiguous Pile Wall – Construction Illustration

What are the benefits of Contiguous Pile Walls?

• Easier to build in load variations, with no requirement for a guidewall
• It’s a cost-effective bored pile solution, compared to other methods
• Provides load-bearing capacity
• Can be installed in difficult ground conditions
• They can be used for more flexible geometry than a diaphragm wall
• Contiguous Walls are ideal for metropolitan cities. (Urbanisation makes the cost of land high and so it is increasingly common to go deeper into the ground)
• Contiguous piles are suitable in crowded urban areas, where traditional retaining methods would otherwise encroach the adjoining properties
• The presence of footings of adjacent buildings and underground utilities on a site make contiguous pile wall the ideal choice for supporting an excavation
• Contiguous piled walls have a faster speed of installation when compared with secant piled walls

Most recently, Aarsleff installed 1,517m of contiguous piles at the University of Leeds for the expansion of their Business School. The wall was constructed using 600mm CFA piles, which acted as bearing piles for the new 6-story teaching block as well as forming the walls for the basement. The 5.85m retaining wall was designed to be cantilever in the temporary condition, then propped by the basement and ground floor slab in the permanent condition. Read more about this project here.

Do you have a requirement for a contiguous pile wall? Get in touch with us on 01636 611140, or send in your enquiry to enquiries@aarsleff.co.uk.