
Parkings souterrains
Main advantages are
- more cost-effective,
- faster execution,
- vertical load bearing capacity; sheet piles can transfer significant vertical loads from the structure above ground to the soil (works simultaneously as a retaining wall and as a foundation element),
- watertight walls and connections with bottom slabs.

The fact that steel sheet piles can be driven tight against the boundaries of the site, and that the wall itself has minimum thickness, means that the surface area available for cars is maximised and hence, the cost per bay is minimised.
New installation technologies can prevent installation nuisances in dense urban areas, such as noise and vibrations. Nowadays, steel sheet piles in urban areas are predominantly installed with high frequency, resonance-free vibratory hammers, or hydraulic presses (no vibrations at all).
Besides, the challenging top-down construction method should be compared to the typical bottom-up method, because it can speed up dramatically the execution (allows working simultaneously on the structure below and above ground level).
A large number of UCP were built with steel sheet piles as permanent walls in the Netherlands, Germany, UK, France, USA, Brazil, Argentina,... in the last decades.
(1) Steel Sheet Piles for Underground Parking Facilities. Guide book. Ref.BF7258TPRP1812111356. 19 December 2018. Royal Haskonig DHV - The Netherlands
Dernière modification : août 2, 2021