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The Geopier Rammed Aggregate Pier® System provided significant cost savings and schedule advantages compared to traditional deep foundation systems to support this 4-story hotel.
- Owner: Desai Hotel Group
- General Contractor: Omni Construction Company, Inc.
- Geotechnical Engineer: B&W Engineering Laboratories, Inc.
- Structural Engineer: Davis Patrikios Criswell, Inc.
The project consists of constructing a 4-story hotel with column loads of up to 1,100 kips in compression and 100 kips in net uplift. The Geopier Rammed Aggregate Pier® System provided significant cost savings and schedule advantages compared to traditional deep foundation systems.
The subsurface conditions consists of soft to stiff lean clay underlain by dense silty sand at approximately 18 feet below existing grade. Groundwater was encountered during drilling operations at depths ranging from 12 to 13 feet below existing grade.
The Geopier GP3® system was chosen to provide settlement control beneath shallow foundations designed for bearing pressures of 7 ksf. Approximately 500 Rammed Aggregate Pier® (RAP) elements were installed in 8 working days, which provided a substantial schedule benefit over the deep foundation alternative. Each RAP element had a diameter of 24 to 30 inches with 8-foot shaft lengths. About 100 of the RAPs were constructed with uplift anchors to resist design seismic tension loads. The uplift capacity of these RAPs also allowed Geopier designers to work with the design team to reduce the footing sizes, which contributed to additional cost savings for the owner.