How Our Products Function

Traditional driven piles are reliant on skin friction of the shaft for their axial load bearing function. This can be a very imprecise mechanism and can be difficult to evaluate by theoretical means.

Helicast™ however employs basic bearing plate theory which is better understood and more reliably predicted by the application of ordinary soil mechanisms or empirical methods.

The multi turn cast steel helix welded to a high grade steel shaft is screwed into the ground with negligible soil disturbance until a target installation torque (greater than the minimum specified) is achieved.

The conical multi turn helix at the end or “toe” of the screw pile creates a “pressure bulb” which in turn uniformly distributes the pile load to the surrounding substrate.

From extensive testing, this pressure bulb has been found to cause the conical multi turn helix to perform in all close space medium and dense soil conditions equal to that of a simple plate helix 2.2 times larger in diameter than the Helicast™ helix.

The characteristics for determining Helicast™ screw pile capacities, is available from a series of screw pile selection and installation guideline charts available from Helicast™.