Monopile Construction Technique for Mumbai Coastal Road Package 1—Mumbai

The most challenging scope of any bridge project in marine or intertidal zone is to construct sub-structures like well foundation, group pile, pile cap etc. Similarly, it also affects the marine environment/ecology to a great extent. Understanding the level of difficulties and aiding to provide an environment friendly solution, various options are analysed to overcome these and found monopile to be the best alternative in this context. Generally, the foundation type of any bridge constructed in river, marine or intertidal zone in India is preferred for group piles. For the first time, monopile is being accepted as the foundation of bridge in India at Mumbai Coastal Road Project. The diameters of the monopiles used in this project are 2.5 m and 3.2 m. Hence, the challenges involved in monopile construction and the experiences to overcome it are worth sharing. Here, a brief discussion on environmental and geological issues and the need of monopile as the foundation of bridge has been discussed. Furthermore, the monopile construction stages and confirmation of monopile capacity through different load tests have been elaborated.