Driven piles are the oldest existing types of deep foundations. It allows you to build where other types of foundations are either completely impossible or very expensive and difficult to implement: in swamps, very weak soils, etc. There is evidence that huts on wooden piles above the water first appeared in the Neolithic era. Wooden supports were driven into the bottom of the reservoir and additionally secured. Later, entire settlements on stilts appeared on the territory of modern Western Europe.
The variety of soils around the Mediterranean Sea prompted the active use of piles by the ancient Romans, probably the most skilful infrastructure planners of their time. One of the most outstanding Roman structures on stilts is the bridge over the Rhine built in 55 BC by order of Julius Caesar for campaigns against Germanic tribes.
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1. The pile foundation appeared in ancient times. But until the middle of the 19th century, these were exclusively wooden piles, the use of which was very limited.
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2. Previously, piles were hammered with a hammer suspended from a rope to a tripod. This method of clogging was unproductive, and was also the cause of industrial injuries among workers. Therefore, technologies do not stand still and a pile-driving installation came to the aid of builders, which can be used both for global construction sites and for private construction.
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3. The first mechanical pile driver was designed by the Russian military specialist Maslov in 1828. From that moment, the history of the widespread development of pile foundations began.
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4. At the end of the 19th century, the use of stuffed piles began. In 1899, the Ukrainian engineer-inventor A.E. Strauss proposed to arrange piles directly in the ground, in wells prepared for this purpose. This method was used in the construction of the Southwestern Railways Administration building in Kiev.
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5. In 1889, engineer S.A. Artsish invented a single-action steam pile hammer. After the end of the First World War, double-acting pile hammers appeared.
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6. The appearance of reinforced concrete in the second half of the 19th century made it possible to install pile foundations from this material, regardless of the level of groundwater or surface waters.
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7. In the Gulf of Mexico, at a depth of 313 m, a platform is installed on driven piles with a length of more than 450 m and a weight of more than 600 tons when immersed in the ground at 150 m.
8. Is it possible to build a house on a steep cliff, and even prone to sliding and gradual destruction? Until recently, it was hard to imagine such a thing. But with the improvement of pile-screw technologies, designers began to successfully implement such complex projects. Of course, the large height difference greatly complicates their tasks, the main one of which is to prevent a landslide.
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