In China’s cities room is often made for new developments by bulldozing older out of date buildings and factories. A wrecking ball and breaking hammer demolish the structures above ground however the underground pile foundations often pose an engineering challenge. The challenges of this application are extracting the pile in one piece without breaking and at high working rate. Companies specializing in extracting these foundations can make good money. 

A number of extracting procedures have been tried to extract these square concrete piles often ranging in lengths up to 20 meters. Some contractors use a vibratory hammer drive a steel casing around the pile to reduce the soil friction and then pull out the pile with a hoist. Others have developed ingenious lifting device to extract casings and piles together. Yet others use a drill to pulverize the pile. All these methods have been tried with some measure of success but often at low working rates.

As a leading piling expert ICE has developed a specialized clamping system to extract square concrete piles at high daily production rate. The TP clamp fits around the pile and is equipped with a large clamping surface to distribute the clamping force evenly over a large surface of the pile. The TP clamp is available in three sizes to suit a different range of pile sizes.

The TP-180 is ICE’s largest pile clamp and has 180t clamping pressure. It can extract square piles in the range of xx – 520mm. the TP-180 is fitted with three pressure cylinders that operate the 175cm 0.91m2 clamping surface. Standard ICE hydraulic vibratory hammers operate at a frequency of over 1500RPM for piles with weak integrity the contractor can chose the ICE Resonance Free hammers that operate at a high frequency of 2300 RPM and therefore have a shorter amplitude effect in the pile making it less prone to breaking. Electric hammers are not recommended for this application as their low frequency damages the pile.

The pile that is to be extracted must be excavated to allow the clamp to fit around the pile. The TP 180 requires 175cm of pile to be excavated the TP 60 63cm and the TP 120 97cm. The hammer and clamp are then brought into position and the extraction is typically completed within minutes. Do you have a project where you need to extract old foundations? Give us a call today to find out if our TP clamping solution is right for you!