Composite piles have been used primarily for fender piles, waterfront barriers, and bearing piles for light structures. In 1998, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) undertook a waterfront rehabilitation project known as Hudson River Park. The project is expected to involve replacing up to 100,000 bearing piles for lightweight structures. The corrosion of steel, deterioration of concrete, and vulnerability of timber piles has led ESDC to consider composite materials, such as fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP), as a replacement for piling made of timber, concrete, or steel. Concurrently, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) initiated a research project on the use of FRP composite piles as vertical load-bearing piles.

A full-scale experiment, including dynamic and static load tests (SLT) on FRP piles was conducted at a site provided by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANY&NJ) at its Port of Elizabeth facility in New Jersey, with the cooperation and support of its engineering department and the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT). The engineering use of FRP-bearing piles required field performance assessment and development and evaluation of reliable testing procedures and design methods to assess short-term composite material properties, load-settlement response and axial-bearing capacity, drivability and constructability of composite piling, soil-pile interaction and load transfer along the installed piling, and creep behavior of FRP composite piles under vertical loads.

This project includes:

Development and experimental evaluation of an engineering analysis approach to establish the equivalent mechanical properties of the composite material. The properties include elastic modulus for the initial loading quasilinear phase, axial compression strength, inertia moment, and critical buckling load. The composite material used in this study consisted of recycled plastic reinforced by fiberglass rebar (SEAPILETM composite marine piles), recycled plastic reinforced by steel bars, and recycled plastic reinforced with randomly distributed fiberglass (Trimax), manufactured respectively by Seaward International Inc., Plastic Piling, Inc., and U.S. Plastic Lumber.

Static load tests on instrumented FRP piles. The instrumentation schemes were specifically designed for strain measurements. The experimental results were compared with current design codes as well as with the methods commonly used for evaluating the ultimate capacity, end bearing capacity, and shaft frictional resistance along the piles. As a result, preliminary recommendations for the design of FRP piles are proposed.

Analysis of Pile Driving Analyzer® (PDA) and Pile Integrity Tester (PIT) test results using the Case Pile Wave Analysis Program (CAPWAP)(1) and the GRL Wave Equation Analysis of Piles program GRLWEAP(2) to establish the dynamic properties of the FRP piles. The PDA also was used to evaluate the feasibility of installing FRP piles using standard pile driving equipment. Pile bearing capacities were assessed using the CAPWAP program with the dynamic data measured by the PDA, and the calculated pile capacities were compared to the results of static load tests performed on the four FRP piles.

The dynamic and static loading test on instrumented FRP piles conducted in this project demonstrated that these piles can be used as an alternative engineering solution for deep foundations. The engineering analysis of the laboratory and field test results provided initial data basis for evaluating testing methods to establish the dynamic properties of FRP piles and evaluating their integrity and drivability. Design criteria for allowable compression and tension stresses in the FRP piles were developed considering the equation of the axial force equilibrium for the composite material and assuming no delamination between its basic components. However, the widespread engineering use of FRP piles will require further site testing and full-scale experiment to establish a relevant performance database for the development and evaluation of reliable testing procedure and design methods.