LARGE DIAMETER PILE FOUNDATIONS FOR RAJIV GANDHI SEA LINK (BANDRA-WORLI) PROJECT IN MUMBAL D.B. Deshpande TT Nashikkar ‘SM. Sabnis President, Joint Managing Director, Chief Engineer, Maharashtra Indian Roads Congress, Maharashtra State Road State Road Development (Former Secretary, PWD, Maharashtra) & Advisor, MSRDC Ltd. Mumbai SYNOPSIS Bandra Worli Sea Link (named now as Rajiv Gandhi Sea Link) is 4.7 km long eight lane bridge constructed over the Arabian Sea to facilitate speedy travel between the westem suburbs and the island city of Mumbai and the first phase of the West Island Freeway. The e constructed using pre cast segmental technology comprises two large cable stayed bridges. The entire bridge is provided with large diameter pile foundations socketted in rock. The present Paper describes the general features of the pile foundations (over 600 piles of 1.5 and 2 m dia.) including the highlights of the Osterberg’s Load Cell Test, which was carried out for the first time in this country. 1 PROJECT PROFILE ‘The Bandra Worli Sea Link Project is the first phase of the proposed west island freeway aiming to connect, the suburb of Bandra to the southem business district at Nariman Point by a freeway abutting the western coast of Mumbai. The eight lane high speed facility is a 4,7 km long bridge on the Arabian Sea across the Mahim bay with the superstructure constructed using the precast segmental technique. The first four lanes of the bridge were commissioned on 30th June 2009. The google map showing the alignment of the bridge, abird’s eye view of the constructed bridge and the spanning arrangement is shown in Fig. 1. The index plan of the bridge highlighting the general arrangement is shown in Fig.2. The bridge has, for most part, continuous units Development Corporation Ltd., Mumbai Corporation Ltd, Mumbai Fig. 1A bird's eye view of Bandra Worli Sea Link INDIAN HIGHWAYS, NOVEMBER 2009 25‘TECHNICAL PAPERS EE TTT pf Re ‘Approech Road 8 To 1G Lane State of Art toll plaza wth modern Pasa ‘at contol and survliancs system Banara Approach Bago | Precast SegmenialSpan-Span 7a 7 we wa] ts808 Banara 688 Free Balance Cantlover Method mr 7 woo | aaa na approach bridge | Precast Sognantal Spay Span Tas 7 wo | 090 Wor CoB Free Balance CantloverMothod By 7 a x0 | as ‘Wort aporoach bilge | Precast Sepmeral Spay Span we Fa @ ae aa Tink Bidar Precast Sagmanal Spanby Span 7a 3 sanoae | a va6re Conatcton» Preesat gers Toa for One Carageway wee eae Fig. 2 Index Plan of Bandra Worli Sealink Project comprising spans 50 m cle constructed with precast segmental span by span method (referred to as approach spans). The bridge also has two cable stayed bridges, a '500 m span supported on a single central pylon (that is two spans 25m e/e back to back) and another with a span of 150 m to facilitate navigation under the bridges The cable stayed bridges are also constructed using precast segmental technology by the free cantilever method. The precast segments themselves are box type with a fish belly shape. ‘The substructure for the approach spans comprises hollow reinforced concrete piers supported on pile caps. The foundations both for ‘the approach spans as well as the cable stayed bridges are large diameter pile foundations with piles of 1.5 im diameter used for the approach spans and piles of 2 m diameter used for the cable stayed bridges and for the link bridge at the Worli end. The concrete used for the superstructure and the substructure was M60 grade using micorsilica, while the drilled shafts were cast in M $0 grade concrete using microsilica. 2 PILE FOUNDATIONS ‘Mis Sverdrup Asia Led. and M’s DAR consultants were entrusted with the design of the approach spans and the cable stayed spans of the bridge respectively. The ‘geotechnical investigations and foundation proposal ‘were carried out by M/s Conrad Felice & Co. (USA). ‘The current project proposal was conceived around the year 1999. The project of construction of a large number of grade separated interchanges was taken up around the same time in the city of Mumbai to relieve traffic congestion on the major roads in the city. The parameters which became determinants in the choice of foundation type were the incidence of geology in ‘the Mumbai metropolitan region, the desired speed of construction, presence of large number of utilities on ‘urban roads and the acknowledgement of the availability of rotary drilling rigs capable of speedy drilling for piles with diameters of 1.2 m for foundations. Having, considered these parameters. in their entirety, rock socketted pile foundations had been made mandatory 26 INDIAN HIGHWAYS, NOVEMBER 2009‘TECHNICAL PAPERS in the Mumbai flyovers project. A greatly satisfactory performance of such foundations in the flyovers project clearly weighed in favour of pile foundations for the Bandra Worli Sea Link Project. With significantly high ‘working loads ranging upto 25 MN in the project, large diameter drilled shafts were warranted for the project further obligating the contractors to deploy reverse circulation drilling rigs. The choice of pile foundations involving such large diameter drilled shafts was mandated also from the consideration that the bridge alignment for some part, runs within an eco sensitive zone (CRZ-1) and these foundations are regarded as the least invasive type. 3 GENERAL ARRANGEMENT OF PILE FOUNDATIONS ‘The approach bridge structure with units of $0 m spans are founded on piers rising over pile caps which are in tum supported on four piles each of 1.5 m diameter. The main cable stayed bridge stands supported on a central pylon rising to a height of 128 m above the sea level and founded on a pylon cap about 2000 sq m plan area and 6 m deep. The pylon cap is supported by 52 piles each of 2 m diameter sockeited to 2 length of about 20 m within rock. The Worli cable stayed bridge pylons are also founded on pile foundations involving 2 m diameter piles. The working loads on piles are in the range of 3 MN to 25 MN. The link bridge which is the connector to Worli Sea Face is provided with pre cast girders and deck slab type superstructure for a length of about 500 m with spans of about 25 m c/c and the four lane carriageway is supported on two piles each of 2 m diameter. With the exception of the portion of the link bridge as aforesaid, where pile caps are done away with, the rest of the pile caps are constructed using cofferdams since the construction thereof lies below the high tide level. 4 LOAD TESTING Working loads on the drilled shafts vary between 3 MN to 25 MN. Carrying out load testing through a conventional arrangement with use of jacks or weights for loading a test pile against a reaction frame was ruled ‘out owing both to the high working loads and marine conditions. The initial load test was performed using the Osterberg’s load cell. The load cell test was conducted on four drilled shafts three being of 1.5 m diameter and one of 2 m diameter. The load testing using the Osterberg’s method and the results are discussed in the following paragraphs. The integrity of the constructed piles was tested using cross-hole sonic logging test. 5 GEOLOGY OF THE AREA The project is located along the western flank of the geological formation called “Deccan Trap”. Extensive research on Mumbai and the surrounding areas has, shown that a series of volcanic eruptions and ensuing lava flows covered the project area after the rifting of plateau basalts while the subcontinent was moving towards the north east during the cretaceous period roughly 65 million years ago. These lava flows were deposited predominantly under sub aqueous conditions giving rise to spilitic pillow flows and tholeiitic basalt flows. The rocks of Bombay, Salsette and Trombay islands are the weathered remnants of these basalt flows. Rock types consist of basalts, volcanic tufts, and breccias and some intertrappean deposits. The rock is overlain by completely weathered rock and residual soils. These weathered rock beds in some places are overlain by transported soils, calcareous sandstone, and thin beds of coarse grained conglomerate. The top of these strata are covered by soft silty clay in places, especially in Mahim Bay. The water depth along the alignment of the bridge ranges from about 3 m to about 8m, 6 ») GEOTECHNICAL INVESTIGATIONS The subsoil and geotechnical investigations had been carried out using a jack up platform and drilling rig. The boring comprised drilling using NW drill rods and a 3.1 1m long triple tube core barrel with a face discharging diamond core bit. The boringjdrilling was carried out in all kinds of soil/rock strata with collection of soil samples at regular intervals as per the specification. After encountering rock, rock coring was carried out using NX size Double Tube Core barrel fitted with diamond Grill bits and reamer shells in the boreholes of varied depths of 25 m, 40 m and 60 m below seabed. Boring, ‘was carried out at about 200 locations and invariably at each pier location, Standard tests on undisturbed soil samples and tests on rock samples were conducted to appreciate the strata. Tests conducted included inter alia INDIAN HIGHWAYS, NOVEMBER 2009 277