A review of pile machines and their selection criteria

Many geoengineering investments can be realized thanks to the use of piles, which may play numerous functions. The piles were classified in the paper in view of assumed criteria and most frequent applications. These works can be performed with specialist pile equipment. In the description attention was paid to the most important technical parameters of pile machines produced by such companies as Bauer, Casagrande and Soilmec. The multi-criteria method with a synthetic measure of evaluation was used for selecting the most suitable pile machine. Among the assumed criteria were the pull up/down force, torque, maximum depth and diameter of the pile and the main winch. The analysis of the obtained weights and criteria revealed that the Bauer pile machine BG 50 had the highest CCS pull up/down and torque and was most appropriate for making long and large-diameter piles.