Two Pile Driving Techniques: Top and Bottom Hammering

Piled foundations with large diameters are usually used for platform foundations and other offshore structures. In these situations, piles are normally driven into the ground. This paper contributes to investigate the feasibility of bottom hammering instead of traditional top hammering. To this aim, Plaxis 7.2 software is used to simulate the pile driving phenomenon. The large diameter pile is assumed to be made of steel. The pile material is assume to be linear, elastic, and of circular cross sectional area. The soil behavior is assumed to be elasto-plastic and its failure is controlled by the Mohr- Coulomb failure criterion. The pile is driven to the ground under the same released energy either by top or bottom hammering. The results on driving stresses and sets will be presented.