Secant pile walls are formed by creating a row of intersecting concrete piles. Primary piles are poured along the line of the wall leaving gaps between the piles.
Next, secondary piles are installed in the gaps before the concrete on the first set of piles has reached full strength. These walls require precision both in placement and in installation.
Secant walls transfer lateral, vertical or a combination of both loads through weak soil layers to a suitable bearing layer.
They create an effective water control barrier for building structural walls where the water table is an issue.
Tangent pile walls are a variation of secant pile walls that are constructed with no overlap, in which one pile touches the other.
Compared to secant pile walls, tangent pile walls offer the advantage of increased construction alignment flexibility and easier and quicker construction. The main disadvantage of tangent pile walls is that they cannot be used in high groundwater tables without dewatering.
Perhaps more than any drilled shaft application, building secant and tangent walls requires precision.
There is no room for computational imprecision or operator error. Drilling Service Company has been designing and building secant and tangent walls for decades. We deliver both precise planning and steady, experienced execution.