Driven Piles vs. Jetted Piles - A Comparison
“Pile jetting” is a technique that is frequently used in conjunction with, or separate from, pile driving equipment for pile placement. Pile jetting utilizes a carefully directed and pressurized flow of water to assist in pile placement. The application of a concentrated jet of water at the pile tip disturbs a ring of sub-grade soils directly beneath it. The jetting technique liquefies the soils at the pile tip during pile placement, reducing the friction and interlocking between adjacent sub-grade soil particles around the water jet. This greatly decreases the bearing capacity of the soils below the pile tip, causing the pile to descend toward its final tip elevation with much less soil resistance, largely under its own weight. In less frequent applications, compressed air jets are used instead of pressurized water jets with the same end result.
