Building Strong Foundations

Empowering construction with driven ductile iron piling.
Simpler, faster, and safer to install than conventional piling.

Features

Reliable driven and solar pile solutions. Our skilled, safe, and quality-focused team delivers exceptional results.

Driven Pile Specialists

Specialising in driving Ductile Iron piles but also installing Steel H Beam, Lipped Channel and wood, our pile driving adapters can be easily modified to suit a range of pile profiles.

Solar Pile Testing Industry

Solar pile installation and testing, in order to find the optimum pile depth and install type, be it pre-drilled, or direct ramming we install and test to suit on-site conditions.

About Us

Betha Pile, a piling contractor registered in 2004, specializes in providing high-quality Ductile Iron Piling solutions. Our skilled team of designers, suppliers, and installers are dedicated to delivering top-notch services to our clients. We also provide turn-key testing solutions for pre-construction foundation investigations on Driven or Cast-In Situ piles specifically for the solar industry.

Primary Advantages

These advantages make Ductile Iron Piling a popular choice for various construction projects.

Pile Technicalities

What is a Ductile Iron Pile

Modular pile sections are connected by a spigot and socket system, eliminating the need for welding and splicing while providing a wall thickness at the connection which is more than twice that of the pipe pile section, resulting in superior dimensional stiffness, driving stability and performance.

With the use of a relatively small excavator fitted with a high frequency hydraulic hammer, piles are installed by driving the pile sections in quick succession resulting in fast and easy installation with minimal vibrations. Ductile Iron Piles can be designed and installed for end bearing and skin friction resistance.

Applications

These piles are suitable as foundations for a wide range of structures, from multi-storey buildings to retaining wall systems, and from Bridges to Power Transmission lines. Suitable for use in acidic and corrosive soils and working lives up to 100 years and beyond.

Capabilities

Small diameter piles, with a relatively thick wall, carry very high loads. Working loads of up to 1000kN are possible with a 170mm diameter / 9.0mm thick wall Ductile Iron Pile. Piles are driven in with 2880kN per blow, up to 400 blows per minute, and will only refuse on suitable founding material. They easily penetrate boulder layers and hard pan calcrete.

Types of Piles

Driven Ductile Iron Piling is a type of piling system used in construction to support heavy structures and transfer loads to the ground. There are two types of Driven Ductile Iron Piling: Good

End Bearing Piles

End bearing piles transfer weight to strong soil or rock by driving the pile to the bearing stratum, determining load capacity by the resistance to driving-refusal

Skin Friction Piles

Skin friction piles rely on frictional resistance between pile surface, cement grout and soil, to transfer load.

Key Projects

These practical examples showcase how DDIP has been used in a variety of projects, including the construction of bridges, buildings, highways, and ports.

Mamelodi Bridges - Pretoria East

Open-Ended 118/7.5 Ductile Iron Piles

Three road over rail bridges with bedrock at an average depth of 8m below blinding level, but varying greatly between foundation structures. All piles were driven to refusal, which ranged between 6 and 15m on the same bridge! The access into each large pilecap was very challenging, with steep wet clayey banks. Once inside each pilecap conditions were still tight but an average production of 20 piles per day was possible. The other constand consideration on this site was the proximity to the active railway lines as well as the overhead infrastructure.

Bloemsmond solar testing - Upington

Open-Ended 118/7.5 Ductile Iron Piles

Installation and testing of driven H section piles to find the optimum embedment depth – geotechnical conditions required the use of percussively pre drilled holes for the piles in most locations, due to the presence of hard pan calcrete. The holes were drilled to 80% of the piles maximum cross-sections dimension, backfilled, and the pile sections driven to practical refusal. Direct driving was possible in areas where the wind blown sands were deeper than 1.5m, but in most cases these sands were limited to 0.5m in depth, so pre-drilling was still required.

Bojating Solar Testing - North West

Open-Ended 118/7.5 Ductile Iron Piles

Installation and testing of driven H section piles to find the optimum embedment depth. Limited geotechnical information was available, test pile locations were selected by the Geotechnical Investigation Consulting Engineer, and were driven to depths ranging from 1-2m. All piles were directly driven into the ground, with no percussive pre-drilling required on this site.

Bloemfontein Central Park Shopping Centre – Bloemfontein

Open-Ended 118/7.5 Ductile Iron Piles

Very tight access piling, as close as 30cm from existing column, with limited headroom of 2.5m in places. 28 end-bearing piles, with a safe working load of 450kN, between 8-10m deep installed in 2 days on site. The site was incredibly congested, with informal traders, pedestrians and the general public.

Val de Vie Bridge over Berg River – Paarl

Open-Ended 118/7.5 Ductile Iron Piles

Challenging geotechnical profile with river boulders present to a depth of 6m was no problem for the pile, driven to refusal into Mamesbury Shale, with an average rock socket of 2m. Safe working loads of between 650-950kN with a raking arrangement of piles limiting the shear load per pile to less than 20kN.

Brickfields Road, parking garage and shop front - Salt River, Cape Town;

End-Bearing 170/9.0mm Ductile Iron Piles, with end-bearing piling show.

Piles had to penetrate uncontrolled fill material, and a cobble/boulder layer, to find refusal on sandstone bedrock. The lift shaft and stairwell foundations had large bending moment requirements, which were overcome by raking those piles up to 30 degrees.

Kaxu Solar One, 1000mw CSP Plant, Pofadder, Northern Cape

Open-Ended 118/7.5 Ductile Iron Piles

Designed for compression of 400kN, and tension of 20kN, these opened ended piles were driven to refusal, socketing into the gneiss bedrock, and generating friction from both the inside and outside of the piling tube. Large scale production with multiple rigs, up to 400 piles per day.

Building Strong Foundations

Features

Driven Pile Specialists

Solar Pile Testing Industry

About Us

Primary Advantages

Less Risk

Value Engineering

Time Saving

Pile Technicalities

What is a Ductile Iron Pile

Applications

Capabilities

Types of Piles

End Bearing Piles

Skin Friction Piles

Key Projects

Mamelodi Bridges - Pretoria East

Bloemsmond solar testing - Upington

Bojating Solar Testing - North West

Bloemfontein Central Park Shopping Centre – Bloemfontein

Val de Vie Bridge over Berg River – Paarl

Brickfields Road, parking garage and shop front - Salt River, Cape Town;

Kaxu Solar One, 1000mw CSP Plant, Pofadder, Northern Cape

A driven pile is a tested pile.
Rock solid reliability

Building Strong Foundations

Features

Driven Pile Specialists

Solar Pile Testing Industry

About Us

Primary Advantages

Less Risk

Value Engineering

Time Saving

Pile Technicalities

What is a Ductile Iron Pile

Applications

Capabilities

Types of Piles

End Bearing Piles

Skin Friction Piles

Key Projects

Mamelodi Bridges - Pretoria East

Bloemsmond solar testing - Upington

Bojating Solar Testing - North West

Bloemfontein Central Park Shopping Centre – Bloemfontein

Val de Vie Bridge over Berg River – Paarl

Brickfields Road, parking garage and shop front - Salt River, Cape Town;

Kaxu Solar One, 1000mw CSP Plant, Pofadder, Northern Cape

A driven pile is a tested pile. Rock solid reliability

A driven pile is a tested pile.
Rock solid reliability