Newsletter Volume 11, Issue 1 March 2026

The IPA America Regional Office resides at Giken America Corporation (GAC), which is a Florida-based corporation established in 1999. As of January 2026, GAC has two offices in the United States; one in Orlando, Florida and the other in Hoboken, New Jersey. GAC mainly oversees the North American market and provides technical advice such as construction planning and design, machine sales/equipment rental, training service for operators, and machine maintenance.

The Press-in Method in the USA

Sheet pile structures are common in the US market; allowing the Press-in Method to continue penetrating into the US market little by little. As for construction projects, the Press-in method is most commonly applied in locations where vibration is concerned. In recent years, most projects for which GAC has provided equipment on a rental basis have been for projects in urban areas. These press-in piling operations are typically in close proximity to existing buildings or near structures sensitive to vibration, such as bridges and underground utilities. GAC provides paired Z-shaped sheet pile machines, which are large compared to the press-in machines used in the Japanese market. Since Z-shaped sheet piles continue to hold a dominant share of the U.S. market, other types of sheet piles used for the market in Japan, such as U-shaped sheet piles, are rarely used. This situation remains unchanged since the previous Newsletter back in March 2023.

Recent Case Study in Louisiana, USA

Project Overview

The West Shore Lake Pontchartrain (WSLP) project is located in southeast Louisiana on the east bank of the Mississippi river. The WSLP program is scheduled to construct 30 kilometers of Levee, eleven flood walls, and other structures including drainage pump stations for a 100-year flood risk reduction since the aftermath of Hurricane Issac, where 7,000 homes and the local interstate highway were submerged for several days due to the storm surge. As of February 2026, the project period of the WSLP is scheduled to be completed in early 2030.

WSLP-106, which is part of the project, used the SILENT PILER™ CLP200A for constructing a temporary cofferdam consisting of tubular piles for building a 4.5 m-high flood wall with a length of approximately 200 m.

Fig.1 shows an overview of the project plan.

Fig. 1. Overview of the project plan

Project Challenges

Fig. 2. Low-headroom press-in operation under the existing bridge

The pile installation was done under the interstate highway bridges that cross the Reserve relief canal and marshlands of the lower Mississippi River basin. Overhead clearance is only 3 meters from the top of the pile (shown in Fig. 2) to the bottom of the bridge girders. The original concept design suggested by the USACE was to build a temporary cofferdam with a combined wall system consisting of tubular piles and sheet piles. Due to vibration concerns that would have negatively impacted the existing bridge piers, Vibratory and Impact Hammers were not to be used for the installation of the temporary retaining structure. Therefore, a low-headroom press-in piling machine was determined to be the best equipment to meet the site constraints.

Since there are no press-in piling machines compatible with traditional combined walls, the contractor proposed a tubular pile wall using the low-headroom press-in machine, which was accepted by the project owner.

Fig. 3. Completed tubular pile wall structure

After the tubular pile installation, the water between the two walls were pumped down and discharged for building the T-shaped concrete flood wall. The tubular piles were installed with P-T interlocks, then filled with mortar by using grout jackets to secure watertightness. Fig. 3 shows the watertight performance of the walls for discharging the water to allow construction equipment to enter and operate between the walls as working space. T-shaped concrete flood wall construction is currently underway, with completion expected in 2027.

 

Project Information

Project Owner: US Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District
Main Contractor: Dynamic Group, LLC
Piling Contractor: Blue Iron Foundations & Shoring, LLC
Specification on Piles: 914mm in diameter with P-T interlocks
Number of Piles: 204 piles (52 piles under the bridge)
Duration: May 2024 to April 2025 (Piling work only)
 

Future Prospects for the Press-in Method in the USA 

Historically, when sheet piles could not be applied, combined wall systems were often selected as the first option, and installation methods typically utilized vibratory or impact hammers since there are no press-in machines that can install traditional combination walls. However, the SILENT PILER™ CLP200A or other hydraulic press-in piling machines for the tubular piles is an innovative alternative solution to conventional methods when noise and vibration restrictions on projects require high section modulus walls.