Ground and Pile Vibrations Induced by Pile Driving

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

A) General remarks

The research presents in this paper a very interesting topic, as well as results that are of wider significance when it comes to the numerical prediction of ground motion effects on civil engineering structures. The paper is concise and clear. The literature in the paper is adequately cited, however, some comments on the choice and significance of cited sources will be articulated in the points below.
1.    The article requires some focus on editing. The same small problems were noticed that can be corrected during the editorial phase.
2.    The biggest problem of the article is the description of the novelty of the research without it the paper presenting engineering tools like numerical simulation is questionable as an important scientific topic. Please write clearly what the authors input to the field. This information is not included also in the conclusions.
3.     It is suggested to make small changes to the abstract. The role of the abstract is to give a basic overview of the paper. In this case, this role is evident. However, there is no mention of the novelty of the paper and from just the abstract it seems as bearly paper showing some engineering approach to the problem.
4.    The introduction is very limited:
a.    Authors focus on pile driving without a proper introduction to the topic of ground motion monitoring during civil engineering works (requires evaluation and citations. E.g   Guinchard, M.”Source based measurements and monitoring of ground motion conditions during civil engineering works for high luminosity upgrade of the LHC” (2019) Proceedings of the 26th International Congress on Sound and Vibration, ICSV 2019. ISBN: 978-199918100-0). Additionally, some research on civil engineering machines (e.g. pilling machines) impact on ground motion uses a transfer function approach to evaluate and foresee such problems e.g. doi:10.18429/JACoW-IPAC2018-WEPMF080.
5.    Editorial problem- giving the value and the unit please make a space (except % and degC). Many errors were detected.
6.    The FEM model has to be explained better. Was the error estimated? With the current information, it is difficult to create a similar simulation to cross-check the data.
7.    Authors are comparing numerical data with some real-life results with no information on the experiment or referencing the source. This is not the proper way. How the reader can be sure that this data is correct? Please explain this in detail or point to where this can be found.
8.    The results presentation is good.
9.    The conclusions do not offer what is new in the case of improving the field. Novelty is not presented.

B) Item remarks
Fig 3. Low quality, no text is visible, no units, scaling, X-axis values not visible. Please enlarge. In the current state, these figures are useless.

C) Conclusions:
The article although interesting in parts require significant changes to the style of the presentation, some editing and a small reconfiguration of the presented elements. Authors are asked to keep in mind the satisfaction of the final reader
The biggest problem of the article is also the clear presentation of the novelty of the research topic.  Some introduction on CE monitoring is missing as well as an explanation of the experimental results taken into comparison with numerical results.
For now, the reviewer asks for major adjustments (some mentioned above) and if improved the article can be eventually accepted.

Author Response

Response to reviewers' comments

We have detailed our response to the reviewers' comments below. The reviewers' comments are repeated in bold.

Reviewer 1#:

The research presents in this paper a very interesting topic, as well as results that are of wider significance when it comes to the numerical prediction of ground motion effects on civil engineering structures. The paper is concise and clear. The literature in the paper is adequately cited, however, some comments on the choice and significance of cited sources will be articulated in the points below.

Answer: We thank the reviewer for the comments. We have carefully considered each of the review comments and have incorporated these comments in the revised manuscript. And in the following, we have detailed how we have addressed the reviewers' comments.

1. The article requires some focus on editing. The same small problems were noticed that can be corrected during the editorial phase.

Answer: We thank the reviewer for the comments. After receiving the advice, the manuscript has been polished by the professional institution.

Fig. 1 the editing certiticate

2. The biggest problem of the article is the description of the novelty of the research without it the paper presenting engineering tools like numerical simulation is questionable as an important scientific topic. Please write clearly what the authors input to the field. This information is not included also in the conclusions.

Answer: Thank you for the comment. As the reviewer said, the description of the novelty of the research is inadequate. We have revised it. In addition, conclusions have been revised. The revised sentences are as highlighted in blue:

In introduction: The above analysis showed that the vibration response was significantly affected by the soil properties and site area, and the difference in soil properties made the vibration response regularity have poor applicability. In addition, most of the existing studies focused on land engineering which means that the applicability remains to be studied under the action of offshore pile driving. In recent years, with the vigorous development of offshore wind power in China, the vibration induced by pile driving on the surrounding soil and structure has become an important research topic. Based on measurement data from Rudong wind farm engineering in Jiangsu Province, this paper analyzed the influence of offshore pile driving on the surrounding soil and adjacent piles of a jacket platform and studied the influence of different modes of pile loading on the vibration response. The influence of vibration induced by pile driving on the acceleration response of the surrounding soil and adjacent piles was analyzed, and a simplified evaluation method for the peak value of the acceleration response of the surrounding soil was proposed, which provides a reference for ocean engineering construction in the Huangsha Ocean area of China.

In conclusions: Based on measurement data from Rudong wind farm engineering in Jiangsu Province, this study focuses on the influence of pile driving on the vibration response of surrounding soil and adjacent existing piles. Specific conclusions and discussions are as follows.

(2) The peak acceleration decreases with increasing loading time under the same impulse. When the loading time increases from 0.002 s to 0.68 s, the acceleration decreases to 12% - 25% of the maximum value. The acceleration attenuation rate gradually decreases with increasing loading time. The acceleration in the lateral direction decreases with loading time more significantly than the acceleration in the vertical direction. The acceleration of the free field decreases with increasing distance between the driving piles and existing piles and has a good linear relationship with the distance in the logarithmic coordinate system. A simplified evaluation method for the peak acceleration response of adjacent sites impacted by the pile driving was proposed, which provides a reference for ocean engineering construction in the Huangsha Ocean area of China.

3. It is suggested to make small changes to the abstract. The role of the abstract is to give a basic overview of the paper. In this case, this role is evident. However, there is no mention of the novelty of the paper and from just the abstract it seems as bearly paper showing some engineering approach to the problem.

Answer: We appreciate the comments from the reviewer. And the abstract has been revised according to the suggestion of the reviewer, as highlighted in blue:

In abstract: Pile driving in marine engineering will cause a vibration response in the surrounding soil and adjacent piles, which may affect the safety of adjacent structures supported by the pile foundation and the internal equipment of the adjacent structures. Therefore, for the safe operation of the project, it is of great significance to study the ground and pile vibrations induced by pile driving. Based on measurement data from Rudong wind farm engineering in Jiangsu Province, a numerical model of the vibration response induced by pile driving is established. Based on various calculation methods of pile driving loading, the influence of pile driving loading characteristics on the vibration response is analyzed. Furthermore, the influence of pile driving on the acceleration of the ground and adjacent piles is studied, including the impact of the distance between the driving pile and the existing pile, and the driving depth. The results show that the acceleration of the ground has a good linear relationship with the distance in the logarithmic coordinate system, and the acceleration of the existing pile attenuates with increasing driving depth of the driving pile. A simplified evaluation method for the peak acceleration response of adjacent sites impacted by pile driving was proposed, which provides a reference for ocean engineering construction in the Huangsha Ocean area of China.

4. The introduction is very limited:
   a. Authors focus on pile driving without a proper introduction to the topic of ground motion monitoring during civil engineering works (requires evaluation and citations. E.g Guinchard, M.”Source based measurements and monitoring of ground motion conditions during civil engineering works for high luminosity upgrade of the LHC” (2019) Proceedings of the 26th International Congress on Sound and Vibration, ICSV 2019. ISBN: 978-199918100-0). Additionally, some research on civil engineering machines (e.g. pilling machines) impact on ground motion uses a transfer function approach to evaluate and foresee such problems e.g. doi:10.18429/JACoW-IPAC2018-WEPMF080.

Answer: We thank the reviewer for the comments. The suggested references have been added in the manuscript.

5. Editorial problem- giving the value and the unit please make a space (except % and degC). Many errors were detected.

Answer: We thank the reviewer for the comments. We have revised it.

6. The FEM model has to be explained better. Was the error estimated? With the current information, it is difficult to create a similar simulation to cross-check the data.

Answer: We appreciate the comments from the reviewer. We have detailed the explanation of the FEM model. And the error between the simulation results and the measured data has been estimated. The revised sentences are as highlighted in blue:

In section 2.1: The meshes of the driving pile and existing pile were solid element C3D8R for the consideration of model meshing and computational convergence, as shown in Fig. 2. The soil surrounding the existing pile and driving pile was grid encrypted. The mesh number of the soil model was 130000, the mesh number of the driving pile model was 2600, and the mesh number of the existing pile model was 8400.

In section 2.1: Before the vibration analysis, the geostatic step was conducted. The vibration analysis step was a dynamic implicit analysis step, and simple harmonic loading was applied at the reference point by the loading control method. In the vibration analysis step, the part of the soil that overlaps with the pile was “model changed”.

In section 2.2: Fig. 5 shows that the simulation results have good agreement with the measured data of marine converter station engineering, which verifies the rationality of the numerical simulation. It should be noted that the average differences between the simulation results and the measured data were within 20%, which is caused by the simplification of parameters in the numerical simulation and measured errors in the field. However, for a dynamic problem, this gap is considered acceptable.

 

7. Authors are comparing numerical data with some real-life results with no information on the experiment or referencing the source. This is not the proper way. How the reader can be sure that this data is correct? Please explain this in detail or point to where this can be found.

Answer: We thank the reviewer for the comments. In the revision, the engineering on which the research is based is described in more detail, as described in introduction and Section 2.2. And the measured data are given, as shown in Fig. 3 and Table 3 in the revision.

8. The results presentation is good.

Answer: We thank the reviewer for the comments.

9. The conclusions do not offer what is new in the case of improving the field. Novelty is not presented.

Answer: We thank the reviewer for the comments. Conclusions have been revised. The revised sentences are as highlighted in blue:

In conclusions: Based on measurement data from Rudong wind farm engineering in Jiangsu Province, this study focuses on the influence of pile driving on the vibration response of surrounding soil and adjacent existing piles. Specific conclusions and discussions are as follows.

(2) The peak acceleration decreases with increasing loading time under the same impulse. When the loading time increases from 0.002 s to 0.68 s, the acceleration decreases to 12% - 25% of the maximum value. The acceleration attenuation rate gradually decreases with increasing loading time. The acceleration in the lateral direction decreases with loading time more significantly than the acceleration in the vertical direction. The acceleration of the free field decreases with increasing distance between the driving piles and existing piles and has a good linear relationship with the distance in the logarithmic coordinate system. A simplified evaluation method for the peak acceleration response of adjacent sites impacted by the pile driving was proposed, which provides a reference for ocean engineering construction in the Huangsha Ocean area of China.

3. B) Item remarks
   Fig 3. Low quality, no text is visible, no units, scaling, X-axis values not visible. Please enlarge. In the current state, these figures are useless.

Answer: We thank the reviewer for the comments. Figures reviewer mentioned have been re-edited, as shown in Fig. 3.

1. C) Conclusions:
   The article although interesting in parts require significant changes to the style of the presentation, some editing and a small reconfiguration of the presented elements. Authors are asked to keep in mind the satisfaction of the final reader
   The biggest problem of the article is also the clear presentation of the novelty of the research topic. Some introduction on CE monitoring is missing as well as an explanation of the experimental results taken into comparison with numerical results.
   For now, the reviewer asks for major adjustments (some mentioned above) and if improved the article can be eventually accepted.

Answer: We have carefully considered the review comments and have incorporated these comments in the revised manuscript. And we have detailed how we have addressed the reviewers' comments in above. We hope the reviewer will find our responses satisfactory and the paper is acceptable for publication in this journal.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

First of all, thanks for inviting me to review this manuscript.

 

The authors have performed an investigation on the vibration responses of the ground and pile during pile driving based on numerical simulation. The study is very interesting, but there are some flaws in this study. Please see below for the detailed comments:

 

1. Language - generally understandable, but I noted many problems with English usage. You may need help from a native speaker or a professional editing service.

2. Please provide a location map for the study area. Also, Figure 1 is a little bit sample, and you can add more aspects to make the figure informative.

3. Please add a scale in Figure 2 to show the dimension of the numerical model. Also, the legend is necessary to show the meaning of colorful regions.

4. Could you provide the in-situ monitoring data to verify your numerical simulation? This point is very important for your study, and please consider it.

5. Table 2: how did you determine these parameters that significantly impact the numerical simulation. Please provide more details.

6. Infrastructure detection and monitoring are very important for safety management with respect to the ground and pile vibrations induced by pile driving. In this way, please consider referring to the following published articles that seem to be relevant to your study:

 

Monitoring and Assessment of Vibration Impact on Ultraprecision Equipment in a Hospital throughout a Whole Construction Period

Automated Detection and Characterization of Cracks on Concrete Using Laser Scanning

Lukpanov, R., Tsigulyov, D., Yenkebayev, S., & Zhantlessova, Z. (2023). Vibration monitoring as a method for assessing the pile driving-induced impact in restrained urban conditions. In E3S Web of Conferences (Vol. 371). EDP Sciences.

Author Response

Response to reviewers' comments

We have detailed our response to the reviewers' comments below. The reviewers' comments are repeated in bold.

Reviewer 2#:

The authors have performed an investigation on the vibration responses of the ground and pile during pile driving based on numerical simulation. The study is very interesting, but there are some flaws in this study. Please see below for the detailed comments:

Answer: We thank the reviewer for the comments. We have carefully considered each of the review comments and have incorporated these comments in the revised manuscript. And in the following, we have detailed how we have addressed the reviewers' comments.

1. Language - generally understandable, but I noted many problems with English usage. You may need help from a native speaker or a professional editing service.

Answer: We thank the reviewer for the comments. The manuscript has been language polished by a professional organization.

Fig. 1 the editing certiticate

2. Please provide a location map for the study area. Also, Figure 1 is a little bit sample, and you can add more aspects to make the figure informative.

Answer: We thank the reviewer for the comments. A location map for the study area has been added in the revision, and more aspects has been added in Figure 1, as highlighted in blue:

In Introduction: For example, the pile driving of an auxiliary platform in the Marine converter station engineering in Rudong Offshore Wind Farm in Jiangsu Province of China (shown in Fig. 1), which may cause an obvious vibration response of the marine converter station. Therefore, the influence of pile driving on the surrounding soil and adjacent piles is the key study of the pile‒soil dynamic response.

Fig. 1 Marine converter station engineering in Rudong Offshore Wind Farm

3. Please add a scale in Figure 2 to show the dimension of the numerical model. Also, the legend is necessary to show the meaning of colorful regions.

Answer: Thank the reviewer for the comments. We have revised it, as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 Numerical vibration model

4. Could you provide the in-situ monitoring data to verify your numerical simulation? This point is very important for your study, and please consider it.

Answer: We appreciate the comments from the reviewer. The in-situ monitoring data has been provided, as shown in Fig. 3 and Table 3.

Fig. 3 Measurement data of acceleration

Table 3 Peak acceleration measured by field test 

5. Table 2: how did you determine these parameters that significantly impact the numerical simulation. Please provide more details.

Answer: We thank the reviewer for the comments. The physical and mechanical parameters of the undisturbed soil, which was gotten by drilling, were determined by geotechnical tests. The related instructions have been added in the revision, as highlighted in blue:

In section 2.2: The project was performed in the Rudong Sea area, and the geology of the project area belongs to the coastal facies sedimentary geomorphic unit of the Yellow Sea. The project site is approximately 50 km offshore. The elevation of the seabed at the site is between -16.00 m and -17.00 m, and the terrain is relatively gentle. The soil layers at the site are mainly silty mud, silt and silty sand. The depth of the geological survey is 100 m and there are 6 soil layers. The physical and mechanical parameters of the undisturbed soil obtained by drilling were determined by geotechnical tests, as shown in Table 2.

6. Infrastructure detection and monitoring are very important for safety management with respect to the ground and pile vibrations induced by pile driving. In this way, please consider referring to the following published articles that seem to be relevant to your study:

Monitoring and Assessment of Vibration Impact on Ultra precision Equipment in a Hospital throughout a Whole Construction Period

Automated Detection and Characterization of Cracks on Concrete Using Laser Scanning

Lukpanov, R., Tsigulyov, D., Yenkebayev, S., & Zhantlessova, Z. (2023). Vibration monitoring as a method for assessing the pile driving-induced impact in restrained urban conditions. In E3S Web of Conferences (Vol. 371). EDP Sciences.

Answer: We thank the reviewer for the comments. The three articles are indeed useful for the manuscript. We have added these in the introduction, which are as follows:

In Introduction: However, pile driving in marine engineering will cause a vibration response of the surrounding soil and adjacent piles, which may affect the safety of adjacent structures supported by the pile foundation and the internal equipment of the adjacent structures (Wang et al., 2023; Ge et al., 2023; Lukpanov et al., 2023).

 

Ge Y, Liu J, Zhang X, et al. 2023. Automated Detection and Characterization of Cracks on Concrete Using Laser Scanning. Journal of Infrastructure Systems: 04023005-1.

Lukpanov R, Tsigulyov D, Yenkebayev S, et al. 2023. Vibration monitoring as a method for assessing the pile driving-induced impact in restrained urban conditions. E3S Web of Conferences 371: 02028.

Wang S, Zhu Z, Zhu S, et al. 2023. Monitoring and Assessment of Vibration Impact on Ultraprecision Equipment in a Hospital throughout a Whole Construction Period. Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities: 04023021-1.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

The paper looks much more professional now. Although, there are still some small elements to be improved and some editing corrections to be done the article has a sufficient quality for publication.

Best regards,

The reviewer

Reviewer 2 Report

My concerns have been addressed by the authors.