Statistical Approach to Determining Ground Vibration Monitoring Distance during Pile Driving

Driven piles have often been used in many civil infrastructures to provide structural loading support. However, the inevitable vibrations induced during pile driving processes may cause varying degrees of damage to adjacent structures. One of the common risk management measures used by many state DOTs is to monitor actual vibrations of surrounding grounds during the pile driving. However, currently there is a lack of a well-established procedure or specification to determine the size of a ground vibration monitoring area. In this study, a statistical procedure was developed to determine a reasonable ground vibration monitoring distance (VMD) for pile driving. First, a 99% prediction level model was developed to predict peak particle velocity (PPV), which was based on the scaled-distance concept and the ground vibration data collected from previous pile driving projects in Louisiana. Second, the threshold PPV of $12.7\hspace{0.17em}\text{mm/s}\hspace{0.17em}(0.5\hspace{0.17em}\text{in./s})$ was chosen to determine the corresponding scaled distance for preventing the structure damages. Finally, the recommended VMD can be readily determined by knowing the rated energy of the selected pile driving hammer. In addition, dynamic FEM simulations, which considered ground and structure interactions and compared the predicted structural responses with their corresponding strengths, were performed to verify the recommended VMD. The approach developed in this research can assist geotechnical engineers with a tool to determine a rational ground vibration monitoring range by considering project specific conditions.