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Procedia Engineering 14 (2011) 1744–1751

The Twellfth East Assia-Pacific Conference

C on Structurral Engineerring and Coonstruction

Rock-S
Socketedd Large DDiameterr Bored Pile andd
Geophyysical Su
urvey inn Cavern
nous Karst Area:
Tin Shhui Wai Public Library
L C
Cum Ind
door Reccreation Centre
a
C. T. WONG
W , K. P. YIM, M UNGb, S. C.
M. K. LEU C FUNG
Archhitectural Servvices Departm
ment, HKSAR Government, China

Abstract

This paper will present the geologiccal and enginneering consiiderations in the planningg, design and d
constructionn of a public library
l cum an n indoor recreeation centre in
i cavernous karst
k area at T
Tin Shui Wai,,
Hong Kongg. An appraissal was carrieed out to dettermine the effect e of geological constr traints on thee
foundation ddesign and to assess the suitability of diff
fferent types of foundation systems.
s Sinkhhole hazard iss
a major chaallenge to enggineers when founding a sttructure and/o or carrying ouut excavation in cavernouss
karst area. F
Formation of a sinkhole usu ually leads to a sudden depression on thee ground surfaace caused by y
the collapse of cavities. This
T paper will describe how w the most ap
ppropriate founndation systemm was chosen n
and how thee sinkhole hazzard was inveestigated and/oor dealt with at the plannin ng, design andd construction n
stages, especcially the experience in usiing cross-holee seismic tomoography to delineate the spaatial extent off
cavities withhin the karst area.
a Moreoveer, in Hong K Kong, although rock-sockettted steel H-piiles and largee
diameter boored piles havve widely beeen employed as foundatio on, limited local experiencce and design n
parameters hhave been pubblished for thee piles installeed in cavernou
us karst area. This paper wiill discuss thee
allowable shhaft friction between
b marb ble and concrrete pile at thhe socket section being addopted in thiss
project.

© 2011 Published by Elseevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

Keywords: Rocck-Socketted Largge Diameter Boreed Piles, Cavernoous Karst, Cross-H

Hole Seismic Tom
mography, Schedduled Area No. 2
(Northwest New
w Territories)

a
Corresponding author: wongctt@archsd.gov.hk
b
Presenter: leuungmk@archsd.goov.hk

1877–7058 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2011.07.219
 C.T. WONG et al. / Procedia Engineering 14 (2011) 1744–1751 1745

1. Propossed developm
ment

w an area oof 5,450m2) iss located in Tiin Shui Wai, H

The site ((trapezoidal shhape on plan with Hong Kong att
the junctionn of Tin Fuk Road and Pin ng Ha Road. The proposed developmen nt is a reinforrced concretee
structure wiith steel trussses for the in
ndoor recreatioon centre andd swimming pool. There iis a 7m deep p
basement too house the plant rooms and d to serve as the car-park. Figures 1(a) and (b) showw respectivelyy
the geologiccal map and geeological section of the sitee.

Figure 1(a) Geoological Map (So

ource: Adapted from GEO 2007: 1105)

Figure 1(b) Seection across the Site

S
1746 C.T. WONG et al. / Procedia Engineering 14 (2011) 1744–1751

2. Geology of the site

According to Environment, Transport and Works Bureau Technical Circular (Works) No. 4/2004, the
site is located within the Scheduled Area No. 2 (Northwest New Territories), which is an elongate curved
valley (Figure 1(a)) with granitic and volcanic rocks forming the high relief topography on either side
and weathered meta-sedimentary rocks forming low hills (Frost 1989). The valley is covered with
superficial deposits. A two-staged approach was adopted to determine the geology of the site, with the
first stage to obtain general information of the geology and the subsequent stage to obtain more detailed
conditions of the karst features as revealed in the first stage (Lee and Ng 2004). A geological assessment
was also conducted to develop the geological and hydrogeological models of the site. A total of 50
drillholes had been sunk, which revealed that the site is underlain by fill materials of 5m to 7m thick
overlying alluvial soils of about 10m thick followed by completely weathered meta-siltstone and then the
bedrock. The bedrock is of 3 types: pure marble, meta-siltstone and granite. Three lines of fault zones run
across the site. Although the geological map (Figure 1(a)) shows that a large portion of Tin Shui Wai
area is underlain by volcaniclastic breccias, the site in this particular project is distinct, because the
underlying rock is pure white marble belonging to Ma Tin Member of the Yuen Long Formation. The
pure marble of Ma Tin Member comprises virtually pure calcium carbonate, which renders it susceptible
to dissolution (Frost 1989). Cavities of maximum “height” of 24.5m have been recorded (Lai 2004). For
this site, extensive cavities with maximum height of 11m (infilled with clayey silt) are found in the pure
marble at north-eastern corner of the site at about 50m below ground. Ground water levels vary from
2.4m to 5.6m below ground. ġ
Chan (1989a, 1989b) classifies sites in karst area into “easy”, “fair” and “very difficult” using his
developed Marble Quality Designation (MQD) values. According to his classification, the site can be
classified overall as an “easy site”. However, if the site is divided into zones, different classification may
be required. There are extensive large cavities as well as sheared zones at the north-eastern side. The
western portion and north-eastern portion of the site should therefore be classified as “fair site” and “very
difficult site” respectively, instead of an “easy site” for the remaining portion. Therefore, a borehole
rating using MQD values in classifying site with cavernous karst should be used with caution and
supplemented by professional judgment and adequate geological modelling.

3. Cross-hole tomographic survey

One of the concerned geological features of the site is the karstic formation with extensive cavities. To
locate the spatial extent of cavities in a karst site, conventional method by sinking drillholes would be
very time consuming and expensive (Morris et al 2005). In particular, sinking drillholes can only provide
information on the “vertical height” of the cavities but not the “spatial extent” of the cavities. Geophysical
methods are possible technique for the three-dimensional exploration of subsurface conditions in
detecting the presence and spatial extent of cavernous karstic formation. The number of drillholes can be
reduced by 50% with appropriate use of geophysical methods (Hoover 2003). Cross-hole seismic and
ground penetration radar are among the various geophysical methods ranked by BS5930:1999 as
“excellent potential but not fully developed” in cavity detection (there being no geophysical method was
ranked as “excellent with the technique well developed” by BS5930:1999). In Hong Kong, ground
penetration radar method in the form of cross-hole radar was used in several cases in the karstic formation
(Lee et al 2000). Therefore, it was determined to employ cross-hole seismic method on this site following
the pre-drilling works. 13 cased drillholes with depths between approximately 25m and 43m and eight
sections were selected to conduct the tomographic survey. A vertical spacing of the sparker source (which
serves as the emitters) at 1m c/c was chosen, and a 24-channel hydrophone spaced at 1m c/c was used at
 C.T. WONG et al. / Procedia Engineering 14 (2011) 1744–1751 1747

the receiverr side. Aboutt 16,000 trav vel times werre determined d and used forf tomographhic inversion..
However, thhe method off tomographic survey is lim mited in spatiaal resolution depending onn the drillholee
distances annd the geometrrical density of
o ray paths. C Cavities with smaller dimen nsions (e.g. leess than 1m orr
1.5m) or thinn rock coverinng may not haave clear idenntification. Thu us, one salien
nt point to be bborne in mind
d
when emplooying seismic tomographic method is thhat the measu urements of seeismic tomogrraphic survey y
have to be verified and supplemented d by the resullts of drillholes. Figure 2 shows one oof the seismicc
tomograms ssuperimposedd with the resu ults of drillholles obtained in
n this site.

4. Choicee of most app

propriate foun
ndation soluttion

In construucting an annnex to TWG Hospitals

H Kwook Yat Wai College
C adjacent to this sitee, many of thee
driven H-piles were dam maged from hard-driving thhrough the kaarstic layer off marble and pile slippagee
along slopinng bedrock (Szze 2006). With a clear geollogical and hy ydrogeologicall model showiing especially y
the spatial eextent and disttribution of th
he cavities undderneath the proposed
p deveelopment, thee layout of thee
building was re-planned such
s that the proposed
p struccture was shiffted away from
m the north-eaastern portionn
of the site aas far as possible, and hen nce avoiding potential diffficulties and reducing costt and time in n
constructingg the foundatioon works.

Figure 2 Tomoographic Image of the Site

Commonnly adopted ffoundation systems in cavvernous karst areas in Hon ng Kong incllude: shallow w
foundation; floating piled-foundation (e.g. Pakt-inn-Place (PIP) piles); driven n steel H-pilees; and largee
diameter boored piles or rrock-socketted d steel H-piless. For this pro
oject, shallow
w foundation inn the form off
pad or raft ffooting was ruuled out, as fo
ounding the buuilding on eithher the fill or alluvium layeers will resultt
1748 C.T. WONG et al. / Procedia Engineering 14 (2011) 1744–1751

in excessive settlement in the building. For a floating piled-foundation using PIP piles, GEO Technical
Guidance Note No. 26 limits the increase of vertical effective stress (at most 10% due to overburden soil)
at the karst surface, so as to prevent the collapse of any cavities in marble. This limit is rather
conservative. Waltham (2005) and Sowers (1996) suggested that if the rock thickness is greater than the
width of cavity, it is likely to be safe. Indeed, GEO Technical Guidance Note No. 26, besides specifying
the 10% rule, also permits the use a rational design approach to determine the increase of the vertical
stress in the cavity. In this project, the founding level of the pile tips is just at a few metres above the karst
surface at some locations, and the thin layer of intact rock above the cavities may cause the roof over
cavities to collapse. Wong (2003) summarized the criteria for the successful employment of floating
piled-foundation in cavernous karst areas as: the karst surface lying at deep level so that the stress induced
at the pile tips will not overstress the roof of cavities, and the building being of low to moderately loaded
and thus can be supported by the relatively low pile capacity of PIP piles.
For driven steel H-pile with or without pre-boring and allowance on pile redundancy for uncertainties,
appropriate pile hammer should be used during the driving operation, which should be light enough not to
damage the pile during hard driving; but heavy enough to achieve the required set (Sze 2006; Wightman
and Lai 2006; Sowers 1996). A dynamic pile-driving analyzer should be used to monitor the stress during
the whole driving process, and the piling specification of the Architectural Services Department of the
Hong Kong SAR Government limits the maximum driving stress to 80% of the yield strength of the steel
H-pile. However, in this project, driving steel H piles without pre-boring was not technically feasible as
founding H-piles on top of karst surface might again possibility cause the collapse of the roof over
cavities within the karst. Driving steel H-piles with pre-boring was also undesirable because of the
environmental sensitivity of the site, with three secondary schools, a West Rail Station and a Light Rail
adjacent to the site. Large diameter bored pile socketted into rock was therefore adopted, especially due to
relatively shallow rockhead (about 20m to 25m below ground) at over three-quarters of the site. The base
of the socket was located at a depth where there are no cavities existing within the zone below the pile
base to a depth equal to the diameter of the pile base. Karst area also contains steeply inclined bedrock
surfaces inducing additional stress from one pile onto the adjacent piles and/or the adjacent cavities. In
designing the length of rock socket of pile, the founding level of rock socket was required to pass through
the adverse joints, and to follow the commonly adopted rule of thumb in Hong Kong with an “angle of
stress dispersion” between 30o and 45o to the vertical (Wai 1991). Similar to large diameter bored pile
socketted into rock, rock-socketted steel H-piles could also be a solution. However, for cavernous karst
area, such foundation system may have difficulties in pre-boring and forming rock sockets, as it is
difficult for the casing shoe to bring the casing through the cavities and to form rock socket on the sound
bedrock, except that a secondary permanent casing is left for pile installation; but this would lead to a
high construction cost of foundation. Kwong et al (1997) stated that unknown and uncontrolled quantities
of soil might be removed when air-flushing is not well controlled during pile installation which may lead
to excessive ground movements and collapse of surrounding soil and ground. Indeed, there is no
published case on the successful employment of rock-socketted steel H-piles in cavernous karst area in
Hong Kong. Hence, a compromise scheme was to adopt rock-socketted steel H-piles only at areas with
cavity-free marble and/or granitic bearing rock underneath, whereas large diameter bored piles are used at
areas with cavernous marble bedrock.
The final adopted foundation design involved a total of 50 nos. of large diameter bored piles with
either 1.5m or 2m diameter, and 99 nos. of rock-socketted steel H-piles. The piling layout plan is shown
as Figure 3. With the adoption of two different piling systems, the design of the pile caps and
superstructure was also required to cater for the possibility of differential settlement due to the difference
in the elastic shortening of reinforced concrete bored piles and structural steel rock-socketted steel H-piles.
 C.T. WONG et al. / Procedia Engineering 14 (2011) 1744–1751 1749

Two paraameters are reequired to calculate the loaading capacity y of rock-sockketted bored ppiles, namely::
the allowabble end bearinng pressure, and a the shaftt friction betw ween rock an nd the concreete/grout. Thee
allowable ennd bearing prressure for Class I or II m marble in Hon ng Kong is tyypically takenn to be 5MPaa
(Meigh 1991). For the shaaft friction, thhe Code of Praactice for Fou undations (20004) issued by the Buildingss
Department only gives thhe values for the allowable shaft friction for socket in granitic and vvolcanic rock;;
but no correesponding figu ure for marble. Overseas, ttheoretical stu udies (e.g. Tan
n and Chow 22006) and in--
situ measureements (e.g. Serrano
S and Olalla
O 2006) sshow that thee allowable sh haft friction inn rock sockett
varies over a large rangee, and there is yet any connsensus. Kutschke et al (20 004) quoted tthree nationall
codes/designn guidelines containing
c the allowable shaaft friction between grout and
a various typpes of rock in n
mini-piles, aand noted thatt the average allowable
a shafft friction rang
ges from 0.425MPa to 0.6220MPa. Hencee,
in this projeect, a conservaative value off 0.3MPa was adopted. To validate
v the ad
dopted param meters for both
h
the allowablle bearing preessure and shaaft friction, foour nos. of ro ock-socketted large diameteer bored piless
have been innstrumented with
w vibrating wires strain ggauges and extensometers with w the assistaance from thee
Department of Civil Engiineering of thee University oof Hong Kong. The instrumeentation in terrms of precisee
level surveyy, strain measuurement and extensometer hhas still been in i progress on
n site. More reesearch by thee
industry is nneeded.

Figure 3 Piling Layout Plan of the

t Site

5. Constrruction work
ks on site

The presence of karstt cavities may y impose connstruction diffficulties, such as a potentiaal for a largee
amount of overbreak leaading to conccrete loss froom pile and hence affectin ng the pile iintegrity. Thee
methods to form rock-soocketted large diameter borred piles throu ugh cavities include:
i fillingg the cavitiess
with lean cooncrete, or insstalling a perm
manent casingg in the cavitiees before conccreting. Particcular attention
n
was also ppaid to avoidd sinkhole su ubsidence byy controlling the dewaterring during tthe basementt
constructionn due to in thet increase of o the effectiive stress oveer the cavitiees. Sheet pilees around thee
1750 C.T. WONG et al. / Procedia Engineering 14 (2011) 1744–1751

perimeter of the basement were driven to a maximum depth of 13m below the existing ground level
providing an effective cut-off. The excavation was divided into two zones, and each zone was carried out
in two stages, so that when dewatering commenced on site, the increase in the effective stress would have
partially been compensated by the removal of overburden soil. Settlement markers, tilting check points,
and standpipe piezometers were also installed to monitor the effects of the works on adjacent structures
and grounds. The piling works was completed in March 2009, and the superstructure works commenced
in April 2009. No sinkhole subsidence was noted throughout the construction period.

6. Conclusion

(a) Ground investigation is crucial for the success of designing building layout, and design and
construction of foundation. Wherever necessary and affordable, geophysical survey method using
cross-hole seismic tomography can provide more information on the sub-surface ground condition
and the spatial extent of cavities and hence help to remove uncertainties or risk in foundation
design and construction.
(b) With more comprehensive information on the complicated geology underneath the site, the
building layout can be relocated to minimize costs and construction time. Similarly, alternative
foundation systems are available. Floating piles or shallow foundation in general are most
economical if the loadings are not high. If, however, cavities are present at high level near ground
surface, rock-socketted large diameter bored piles passing through cavities are recommended.
(c) Roofs over cavities within the karst may collapse due to the increase in the stress and construction
activities, and it is vital for engineer to study carefully the increase in the stress induced by the
foundation and the dewatering process. GEO Technical Guidance Note No. 26 has limited the
additional vertical pressure on karst surface and this should be reviewed in due course.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to record their thanks to the Director of Architectural Services for her kind
permission of publishing the paper, and to the staff in the Architectural Services Department, Hong Kong
SAR Government for their help in preparing the manuscript.

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