444 Miscellaneous piling problems Niches cut in masonry wall Concrete corbel Hydraulic jack Underpinning pile ——iacked down in| shore sections Figure 9.7 Underpinning load-bearing wall by jacking piles from corbels. @ Piles east in Piles cast in second stage Figure 9.8 Bored piles used for combined underpinning and lateral support (a) Contiguous piles {(b) Secant piles. direction or to maintain a constant shaft diameter, there are always gaps present between adjacent piles. Below the water table, sand and silt can bleed through these gaps causing a considerable loss of ground, and the installation of the piles in a double staggered row cannot prevent this happening. Contiguous piles are best suited to underpinning and to support excavations in firm to stiff clays or damp silts and sands above the water table. Where the excavation is to be performed in water-bearing coarse soils, any loss of ground can be avoided by adopting secant piling (Figure 9.8b). Alternate piles are first installed by conventional drilling and casting relatively weak concrete in-situ. The soil in the space between the pile shafis is then drilled out and a ‘secant’ is cut into the wall of the ‘sof pile on each side, using appropriate drilling tools, including CFA techniques. Conerete is next placed to fill the drill hole, thus forming the interlocked and virtually watertight wall.