Construction of Steel Pipe Sheet Piles with Newly Developed Joint System

Abstract

H-joint in steel pipe sheet piles (SPSP) is introduced and developed, the joint is made by welding a cylindrical steel pile on either side of an H steel section, welding is continuous along their lengths therefore it is completely waterproof with high strength; the two connected piles are installed simultaneously hence short construction time is required. It is shown through full-scale field construction tests using 3 existing SPSP installation methods, that construction of H-joint SPSP is practical and have high construction accuracy of 1/250~1/1400. A segment joint for connecting two H-joint SPSP segments in the field is proposed and evaluated for bending strength. It was observed that (1) failure of the segment joint did not occur and that failure of the material was due to local buckling at the bending section of the pipe pile (2) Bending strength capacity of the continuous SPSP and SPSP with segment joint is nearly equal (3) Load on the main piles is transferred to H steel when development of plastic zone in main piles occurs and then transferred to the splice plate. A segment cutting test is conducted to show that cutting of temporary portions of H-joint SPSP segment is practical and easy.