Talk:Deep foundation

Rename/Move Article
Should this article be called Deep Foundations instead of Pile? --Tom Bonnie 22:00, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps, but laymen are more likely to look for the term pile than the term deep foundations. It may be better to create a redirect from Deep foundation and Piling to Pile. Argyriou (talk) 23:43, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Redirects created --Tom Bonnie 04:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Redirect is not wise. Deep foundations and piles ARE NOT the same thing. Piles are a category in deep foundations. There are multiple different types of deep foundations including piles, drilled shafts, caissons and piers. ~Zuejay 13:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

--- Sorry, was sent here by a link for the word "pile", thought "pile" was the term at hand. Fixed it by reversing the nicely formulated definition of "shallow foundation". Now we have it all. Sorry again for the previous rush change.Arminden (talk) 08:04, 14 July 2015 (UTC)Arminden

Split page

 * Would it be a good idea to possible split this page into a couple of different pages? This is a page that covers a lot of information including information that a person wanting information may not think to just look for pile. if someone is searching fro driven pile or drilled pile they get no information because it is a sub category of pile and they simply leave Wikipedia and search for the information else where. Is there anything that can be done so the search is less general and more critical? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pdigrl (talk • contribs) 13:16, 22 January 2007 (UTC).
 * Yes, we can create redirects. Just create the page and only put #REDIRECT page name . This allows us to have all the information on one page and also help people who search under other names. Basar 18:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This article is begging for a splittin'. There are too many subjects being covered in and some of them, like the retaining walls, don't even belong in here. --Mecanismo | Talk 00:34, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Relation to retaining walls
It seems to me that the sheet piling, soldier pile, and pile wall sections would be more appropriate in the article retaining wall. These things seem to be more of an application of previously discussed pile types rather than a pile type itself. Basar 05:01, 3 February 2007 (UTC)


 * There should be *some* discussion here. As retaining wall elements, the pile part is both wall and wall foundation, and thus belongs in both articles. Argyriou (talk) 23:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Alright, that sounds fine. I'm not exactly sure how to organize this stuff though. Right now the organization seems a little . . . imperfect. I'm also thinking that with all this content, we might be able to split some of the sections off to new articles . . . someday. Basar 05:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Spliting off items from this article
I've been working on some other articles in this area and believe that piling is a construction technique that is common across multiple construction applications -- not just deep foundations -- and so should be split off into its own article and referenced here. Besides deep foundations, piles can also be used in:
 * Shoring
 * Retaining Walls
 * Others ???

Everyone OK if I split Piling off to it's own article? If so, should it be called Pile or Piling? Should Pile Wall also be a separate article as well?

ReedConstruction 14:25, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm fine with making lots of splits from this article, but I'm fuzzy on how the content would be different from this article. Is there a fundamental difference between deep foundations talked about in this article and piles used in retaining walls, or are they more than less the same thing? If they are the same, we can simply make sure the language in this article encompasses shoring and retaining walls. So, what I am suggesting is that it is just a nomenclature difference and therefore unnecessary to repeat the information in two places, but I'm not sure about this. By the way, we start articles and headings with a capital and then we use lower case letters for the following words if they are not proper names, so your retaining wall link needs to have a lower case "w" to work. I think pile would be an OK title. Basar 14:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The only case I see where piles aren't really just a type of deep foundation is in piled walls, which are also discussed in this article. Piled walls are used for more than just shoring, so a separate article would be appropriate, though the section here should be fixed. "Pile" itself is used to mean a number of different things - some people consider drilled piers to be piles - and I think it best to keep all the senses of it in this article. The article on pile driver needs a lot of help, too.


 * Technical and stylistic (Wikipedia) considerations: Right now, the article pile is a redirect to this article; it could be edited to have actual content, then we'd need to change the template at the top of this article. (But I'd rather not do that.) If you want to expand a section of this article into a stand-alone article, please leave the section in this article in place (though correct it as necessary; piled walls section needs some help), and put a "main article" note at the top of the section. User:Argyriou (talk) 16:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * What about:
 * Diaphragm Walls
 * CSM - Cutter Soil Mixing


 * Also, "pile walls" should be called secant pile walls.
 * Mr. Welsh (talk) 12:53, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Timber piles + a ref for you
You may be interested in incorporating reference to a 19th century patent taken out by John Dolbeer for an apparatus for "steaming piles". Rather than a drastic treatment for a medical condition (sorry, my British sense of humour...) this appears to be a means of treating timber piles against insect infestation, in situ. (The external link to the patent text is in his article.)

Incidentally, I generally concur with the comments above regarding article split, etc. This should become a master article with numerous sub-articles, splitting-off large sections whenever large enough. I needed a link for a timber pile (hence the comment made above) and had to use Deep foundation, which is not intuitive. This is way off my usual subject areas, but to me a 'pile', in this context, is a physical 'thing' -- in the case of a timber pile, it's simply a dirty-great long bit of wood, which only becomes a "deep foundation" once it's actually pushed into the ground and is used to support something: before that it is still a 'pile', so we should be able to link to it as such.

EdJogg (talk) 08:37, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

First paragraph, last sentence: "...and filling it with concrete, mass or reinforced."
Is this trying to say "...and filling it with mass concrete or reinforced concrete."? Paulburnett (talk) 19:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Monopile foundations? -- not mentioned in the article
There are quite a number of Wikipedia articles that refer to "monopile foundation" -- especially related to near-shore, fixed-bottom wind turbines -- but I can't seem to find any WP article (e.g., monopile, or monopile foundation, as of October 2009, both come up as red links) that describes a monopile foundation. Might it be possible for someone who is a geotechnical engineer expert to add a few words or a section to either this article (or Foundation (engineering) if that would be better) in order to describe what one is and how they work? I see there are a lot of Google hits but an expert could probably best summarize the important ideas for a paragraph in the appropriate WP article on underwater geotechnical engineering, or Deep foundation, or Foundation (engineering). N2e (talk) 21:55, 26 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Here is a good source for the construction process of a subsea monopile foundation for an offshore wind farm: Hope this is useful to other editors and readers. N2e (talk) 19:08, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

When are they used?
Could a knowledgeable editor add to the intro to this article a sentence about typical usage? The photos all show bridges or large buildings (thus implying that's the main usage), but is this type of foundation ever used for, say, a typical suburban single-family home? Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:44, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Subsea foundations -- image requested
There is a decent source of present and future foundation designs for subsea applications, especially offshore wind turbine applications, here: http://offshorewind.net/Other_Pages/Turbine-Foundations.html Many of the images are reportedly from the US Government agency NREL, which should make them freely usable on Wikipedia. Is someone reading this Wikipedia-image-savvy and could possible obtain these images from the US government and put them up on Wikipedia? I've added a reqimage tag. N2e (talk) 19:48, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

A monopile foundation is not a "driven foundation"
Monopile foundation is listed as a subsection of the section Driven foundations. This is incorrect. Large diameter monopile foundations may be driven, or rather a part of the case may be driven, but they need not be. A monopile foundation is still a monopile when no driving is utilized.

However, given the current section organization of the article, I'm not sure where to put monopile foundation without reworking the section headings. So for now, will just note it is erroneously placed. N2e (talk) 01:49, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Lead (2014)
A deep foundation is a type of foundation distinguished from shallow foundations by the depth they are embedded into the ground.

This is probably not the best foundation on which to begin our lead. It feels laughably redudant, and might be improved with some combination of rewording, examples, and/or some sort of indication of "how deep is deep and not shallow?" I'm not an expert on the subject, so I'll leave this to more knowledgeable hands. --j⚛e deckertalk 20:11, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, that does not seem an adequate encyclopedic description. However, since that was apparently the situation a year ago, I'll start a new section to discuss how we find the article today. N2e (talk) 17:04, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Lede (2015)
The lede sentence as of 13 July 2015 reads: "A pile is a vertical structural element of a deep foundation, driven deep into the ground at the building site."

Sounds okay as far as definitions go, but it does seem to have a scope that is rather different than the article title.

Is this an article about piles? or "deep foundations"? Are all piles a part of a deep foundation? Are all deep foundations constructed exclusively of elements called piles? Should we be starting the lede sentence of an article about "deep foundations" with a definiition of piles rather than of deep foundation? Is it possible to make a deep foundation that does not have piles? ... or are piles required, and and the only way to ever get a deep foundation?

I don't know enough about this aspect of civil engineering to know, but I think we owe it to our Wikipedia reader to make the lede clear, and help answer the big question of describing that which the article title says is going to be described.

Is the article title the wrong one? Should this, in fact, be an article called piles? Cheers. N2e (talk) 17:04, 13 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Sorry, was sent here by a link for the word "pile", thought "pile" was the term at hand. Fixed it by reversing the nicely formulated definition of "shallow foundation". Now we have it all. Sorry again for the previous rush change.Arminden (talk) 08:04, 14 July 2015 (UTC)Arminden


 * The difference between a shallow foundation and a deep foundation is somewhat artificial. I was going to say that it's the potential failure mode, but both can fail through excessive settlement or differential settlement. To some extent, shallow foundations are embedded below the surface for reasons other than vertical capacity - frost resistance, soil expansion resistance, lateral capacity, etc., but shallow foundations do gain vertical capacity through deeper embedment. So maybe the difference is that embedment of shallow foundations is primarily about factors other than vertical capacity.


 * There's a problem with terminology, in that there is not consistent use of the word "pile" even within one region. Where I practice, in the SF Bay Area, some people use "pile" solely to refer to driven foundation elements, while others include all vertical drilled shafts as "piles" - CalTrans refers to "Cast-in-drilled-hole piles". Unfortunately, the common alternate term for drilled shafts is "pier", which is a remarkably overloaded term. Argyriou (talk) 22:41, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

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