AllWave-VDP

Driveability Software for Vibratory Driving

AllWave-VDP Driveability software for Vibratory Driving

AllWave-VDP is a powerful tool for driveability studies for vibratory driving. The use of vibratory hammers to install deep foundations, mono piles, offshore wind foundations, etc. requires advanced software to predict the behavior of the total of pile, soil and hammer. AllWave-VDP helps to select the hammer type, the expected penetration depth, etc.

Key Benefits

For onshore and offshore piling
Method of characteristics for accurate simulations
Soil models for both impact and vibratory driving, including soil fatigue
Easy to operate, extensive hammer library
Generate input data for fatigue analysis
Back analysis with PDA and VDA

StatRapid is one of the methods of Rapid Load Testing

AllWave-VDP

AllWave-VDP is one of the modules of the AllWave Stress Wave Simulation Software Package: Including programs for onshore and offshore driveability studies for impact and vibratory hammers. AllWave-PDP is dedicated to impact pile driving and AllWave-VDP is developed for vibratory driving.

AllWave is a Wave Equation Program based on the method of characteristics for one-dimensional stress waves and offers the possibility to simulate the soil behaviour according to various soil models (TNO, Smith and Randolph).

Installing of offshore monopiles for an offshore wind farm by vibratory driving

Driveability study?

Being capable of predicting pile behaviour during driving is vital to minimise the risk of early refusal. Early refusal will require remedial actions to be taken in order to reach design depth, with possibly large financial consequences. These remedial actions may be:

To continue driving with the same hammer, risking damage to both hammer and pile
To continue driving with a bigger hammer, assuming the pile is strong enough to resist the higher stress levels
To remove the internal soil plug or remove soil around the pile or sheet pile, even though this could result in a lower bearing capacity when the pile is driven to the final penetration depth.

AllWave-VDP for HONG KONG-ZHUHAI-MACAU BRIDGE, CHINA — AllWave-VDP helped with the construction of the Hong-Kong Macau connection. AllWave-VPD has proofed that the installation of the huge tubular piles of 2 meters in diameter and over 40 m of length, was possible by connecting 8 (!) vibratory hammers.

AllWave Software Packages

The AllWave software programs are all based on the one-dimensional stress wave propagation. Available are

AllWave-PDP Driveability Studies for Impact Hammers
AllWave-VDP Driveability Studies for Vibratory Hammers
AllWave-DLT Signal Matching for Dynamic Load Testing (DLT/PDA)
AllWave-RLT Simulation of Rapid Load Tests
AllWave-SIT for profiling pile shape from SIT signals

Allwave-VDP modeling of pile, hammer and soil

The program enables the modelling of the vibratory hammer, the pile, and soil resistance in a realistic way.

Accurate input values for all these parameters can be obtained from the database integrated in the program, which contains not only models for hammers and eccenter mass, but also static and dynamic parameters for a variety of soils.

Results AllWave-VDP

Typical results of an AllWave driveability analysis are (among many others):

Penetration speed versus depth diagram. This graph shows if the pile or sheet pile can be vibrated up to design depth. Penetration speed reducing to zero indicates refusal.
Maximum penetration depth. Essential for hammer selection and also provides the pile driving contractor an indication of the time required to drive the pile to target penetration. For field tests the graph can be used to check whether the pile behaves “normally”.
Maximum stresses, both in compression and tension, in the pile as input for fatigue analysis.

Reporting options

The software includes a powerful report generator:

Automatic generation pdf or word file
Selection of graphics
Page header
Company name
Page numbering

Soil Fatigue

One of the considerable advantages compared to other driveability prediction packages is AllWave-VDP’s advanced implementation of soil fatigue modelling. The soil model is updated with the soil fatigue at each simulated penetration level. Without proper soil fatigue modelling it is almost impossible to predict the penetration speed and the depth of refusal of a pile in a reliable way.

AllWave-VDP penetration speed as function of depth — Penetration speed as function of pile toe penetration indicating expected installation time and refusal depth

AllWave-VDP results as function of depth — AllWave-VDP results: Graphs as function of pile toe penetration for lower, average and upper bound for soil resistance

Fatigue pile material

Results of drivability study with AllWave-VDP are the stresses at every level of the pile and its changing in time. Based on AllWave-VDP simulations the stresses and its changes can be calculated and exported for fatigue analysis.

Application

Determination of refusal depth
Selection of required capacity of the vibratory hammer
Determination of fatigue of the pile material

VDA monitoring and AllWave-VAM Vibratory Amplitude Matching

Allnamics has developed advanced monitoring equipment to perform measurements during the installation of (mono) piles by means of an vibratory hammer. Monitoring to control installation process, the performance of the hammer, control pile stresses, fatigue of pile material, etc.

With AllWave-VAM, the Vibratory Amplitude Matching, the parameters for pile, soil and hammer used for simulations can be correlated to real measured values.