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That particular sentence on the wiki is uncited, so trust it with extreme caution. That said, yes, anything is feasible with enough money, and generally you pay
by SECProto 5y ago
That particular sentence on the wiki is uncited, so trust it with extreme caution. That said, yes, anything is feasible with enough money, and generally you pay an engineer to determine what method will cost the minimum amount of money.
That's effectively what the Millenium Tower did - their engineers determined that friction piles to the sandy layer would be the cheapest acceptable option. Then, due to factors they may or may not have been able to predict, it turned out to not be an adequate solution.
If they had known beforehand, the next cheapest option would have been chosen - likely end-bearing piles to the bedrock, like they are now retrofitting. Floating raft foundations are truly a last resort due to their expense.
- mannykannot 5y agoYou are right - based on the numbers given at the start of the article, and a density of clay around 1700 Kg/M3, if one kept within the footprint of the tower, it seems one would have to excavate ~100 feet down to create a sufficient volume (less, of course, if you can broaden the chamber beyond that footprint, but I guess the scope for that is limited - and, on the other hand, the landfill layer may be less dense than clay.)