The Loren Group and its integrated Tapered Friction Pile Installations
For two decades, the Loren Group has been the sole fabricator of Tapertube®, an invention by Jack Dougherty and the late Stanley Merjan. We sell friction piles directly to the foundation industry and provide skillful Integrated Steel Services with successful friction piling installations. In 2022, The Loren Group restructured and expanded to include a sales and marketing team and an engineering and education team. We are fully dedicated to exceeding the expectations of our customers and are presently the leader in the nation, and arguably in the world of steel friction pilings.
The Versatility of Tapered Friction Pilings
The Loren Group has a strong commitment to simplifying our customer’s quoting process and job site installation while providing an economic advantage through our value engineering. We provide multiple diameters, gauges, and rates of taper to enable the designer to select a Tapered Friction Pile (TFP) suitable for a wide variety of substrate conditions. For fully-embedded foundation piles, the most commonly used diameters are 12-18 inches with design loads up to 200 tons, contingent on soil capacity. The larger diameters are well adapted for such applications as exposed bridge bents and marine piers. Gauge requirements of adjoining sections can be varied as necessary to meet design considerations, soil conditions, or hammer-pile energy relationships. Features include:
- A tapered shape that develops the necessary load capacity with minimum embedment in the bearing stratum.
- A directly driven installation without the use of mandrel or special devices. Standard trucks or crawler cranes can be used.
- A tapered shape that reduces concrete volume requirements and costs.
- A simplified on-site driving process that consists of cast steel conical noses.
- A heavy wall that provides maximum tip protection.
- An easily spliced process to round pipe sections that are self-aligned for field welding. No costly mechanical splice is required.
With Foundation Tapered Pilings, there is no guesswork. After being driven to final penetration, each tapered pile can be visually inspected at its full length to verify the integrity of the pile. With TFPs there are no unknown distortions, corkscrews, out-of-plumb piles, or curled tips.
The Loren Group provides an easy process in which orders can be adjusted to varying length, wall thickness, and quantity as the job progresses to meet actual requirements.
Measured Tapered Friction Pilings Reports
As the trend continues to design heavier loads on bearing piles, design comparative test pile programs are conducted frequently to verify the feasibility of these higher loads. Forty years ago, design loads were usually in the 40 to 60-ton range. Today, it is common to assign design loads of 100 tons or more. Here are the advantages of The Loren Group tapered friction pilings:
- Made from 50 ksi steel
- High capacities for shorter driven lengths
- Conventional equipment and installation methods
- Reduction in concrete volume requirements
- Options for factory-attached cast steel points
- TFP diameters are made to match standard pipe sizes
- Directly driven. No mandrel or butt reinforcement required
- Full butt-weld splices available for direct bearing of pipe extension on TFPs.
- Drive-fit sleeves may be used instead of welding to extend piles
- Heavier thickness provides greater drivability, eliminates the need for coating and reinforcement
Tapered Friction Pilings are the only tapered piles available with wall thicknesses up to 0.500″ produced from 50 ksi steel. This extra thickness and higher-grade steel often eliminate the need for coating and internal reinforcement. We provide comparative pile test data upon request.
