Service centre, Eichstätt

PORR was commissioned to build the foundation for the new Martin Meier GmbH service centre in Eichstätt/Altmühltal. Despite Siberian temperatures and tricky soil conditions with varying depths, a total of 190 Frankipiles NG® with a diameter of 61cm were successfully produced in January and February 2021. The benefits: the Franki piles allowed the team to react flexibly to the prevailing subsoil conditions. Franki piles are primarily used where subsoil with good load-bearing properties is only available at very deep levels and where high loads need to be transferred. The wide range of available design variants means that they can be individually adapted to the conditions on site in order to achieve high load-bearing capacities.

Economical and secure on every terrain

The soil in Eichstätt was unusual in several respects. First, the height of the overlying limestone and marl rock varies enormously and extends over the entire construction site. It was possible to set some of the piles down on the rock at a depth of only 4m,

while the team didn’t hit bedrock at all in other parts of the site. In these areas, gravel pre-compaction was used to improve the soil, with the gravel being removed at a pile-setting depth of 10m.  After the gravel pre-compaction process was completed, the pipes were driven back to the planned pile-setting depth, the pile toe was formed with dry concrete in the normal way, and the Franki piles were constructed.

A variety of applications for more sustainability

An asbestos cement pipeline running directly parallel to the construction site posed a further challenge. The team had to proceed carefully, taking vibration measurements above the pipeline in the first pile axis in order to be able to assess its behaviour. It is precisely in these conditions that the Franki piles offer so many advantages: Variable drop heights mean that production generates relatively little vibration, and the full displacement of soil means that there is no excavated spoil to extract. This saved transport costs and CO₂ emissions at the Eichstätt site.