Design Challenges of Large Diameter and Long Steel Pipe Pile in High Plasticity Clay at Patimban Port Development Project

Patimban deep seaport is located approximately 120 km eastern of Jakarta metropolitan area on an artificial land about 1 km offshore of Subang coast. A state-of-the art berth structure developed by Japanese, namely strut type, was adopted for the container and car berths. The structure involves the construction of large and long steel pipe piles (SPPs) into a high plasticity soil. To date, there is little knowledge and experience on the response of SPPs driving under such challenging soil. This paper reports the piling works at container berth area with special focus on technical challenges to validate the pile bearing capacity by pile dynamic analysis (PDA) tests owing to the unique characteristics of Patimban soil. It also details how our technical solutions can overcome such problems during the construction of container berth which was successfully completed and operated since Dec 2021.