Construction professionals face certain issues when dealing with Tavernier Piles, but it is possible to overcome these with the right strategies. One of the problems is when there are abrupt changes or decrease of the blow count related to bearing piles. This happens when you find sudden issues with piling group blow counts. When this happens, the first thing to do is to check the condition of the soil with borings. When the boring is not an indicator of a weathered profile over the bearing, or the bedrock layer damage upon the pile, then pile toe is possible.

Piles facilitating internal inspection are going to reflect the light in pile toe, inspect for any damage indication. With piles without possibility of any internal inspection, it is necessary to take some dynamic measurements for evaluating problem and consider the extraction of pile. Another problem happens with slightly lower blow count than as per expectations. Now perform the restrike tests and establish setup factor, drive to the lower capacity. You might get better performance than anticipated and it is necessary to check this as well. Another problem might be significantly lower blow count than as per expectation.

When blow count for driving pile becomes lower than your expectation, it is necessary to review the soil borings first. In case, this does not indicate presence of soft layer, problem might be due to damaged Tavernier piles and that these are below grade. With spliced pile, it is important to re-evaluate splice details along with field procedures to anticipate possible failure of the splice. It is necessary to investigate both the tensile stress and pile along with compressive stresses present at toe. With acceptable calculated stresses, you have to investigate possibility of uneven or obstructive toe contact upon hard layer and other reasons for damage of pile toe.

Another problem relates to prior installed Tavernier piles showing lateral movement upon the driving of the new piles. The reason for the movement of the existing piles is soil displacement with the driving of new piles. One possible solution is re-driving installed piles, pre-drilling pile location for reduction of ground movement, and changing pile installation sequence. The reason for movement of lateral pile might be soil failure related to adjacent slope. There can be out of the alignment pile driving due to the control issues related to soil conditions or hammer-pile alignment.