Geotechnical Design of Large Diameter Impact Driven Pipe Pile Foundations: New East Span San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is one of the most heavily travelled bridges in the world. The east span of the bridge will be replaced due to seismic safety concerns. The new bridge will be founded mostly on large 1.8 to 2.5-metre diameter, approximately 60- to 100-metre long pile foundations. Pile foundations will experience tension loads of up to approximately 90 MN and compression loads of approximately up to 140 MN during the design earthquake. This paper discusses the geotechnical design approach and techniques followed to evaluate the soil-pile-setup with time and the axial capacity of large diameter impact driven pipe piles for the project.