A Critical Review of Pile Acceptance Criteria

Pile acceptance criteria previously or currently used in Hong Kong by the Buildings Department, Housing Department, Architectural Services Department and the Civil Engineering and Development Department are reviewed. It is observed that the pile acceptance criteria are mainly aimed at controlling the settlement of piles. Some of the acceptance criteria used for total settlement or residual settlement are not reasonable and excessively restrictive. A proposal involving simplification of the Davisson criterion and removal of the residual settlement criteria is presented for unifying the current pile acceptance criteria in Hong Kong.