Steel Intensive Basements

Appleton Piling Ltd has vast experience in the design and construction of Steel Intensive Basements. There are many different applications for example; underground car parks, pumping stations, plant rooms, basement dwellings, storage tanks.

We encourage working in partnership with our clients to ensure that the initial requirement is understood, designed accordingly and ultimately completed on site to give the most economic engineering solution. The construction of Steel Intensive Basements can offer significant cost and programme benefits over traditional reinforced concrete basement construction and also secant or contiguous piled walls.

The sheet piles are designed to retain the temporary excavation levels within the cofferdam, generally utilising a temporary welded steel frame. In the permanent case the sheet piles form the retaining structure of the basement when propped with the constructed basement and ground floor slabs. The sheet piles can also be designed to carry vertical building loads.

The designs are carried out to current Euro Codes, relevant industry standards and the Steel Construction Institute publication SCI P275 Steel Intensive Basements.

The sheet piles can be designed to carry vertical loads typically 100 to 250 KN/m and in some cases up to 450 KN/m.

On completion of the excavation to the formation level, Appleton Piling Ltd seal the sheet pile interlocks by welding and supply and fix a welded steel profile water bar plate to the sheet piles at the mid slab position. The Main Contractor may fix a hydrophilic strip to the water bar profile plate, this will increase the integrity of the steel waterproof structure.

All welding works are carried out to specific Welding Procedures with associated Welder Qualifications. Non Destructive Magnetic Particle Inspection Testing is carried out on site to ensure the highest level of quality is achieved for the waterproofing works. A full insurance backed warranty is provided for the permanent basement solution which covers both design and waterproofing.

On completion of the concrete basement and ground floor slabs the sheet piles can be coated with a conventional paint system.

We have recently constructed number of steel intensive basements for many commercial and residential developments;