A CASE STUDY OF FROST ACTION ON LIGHTLY LOADED PILES AT ONTARIO SOLAR FARMS

Pierre-Philippe Levasseur, Paul Dittrich, Michael Maher

In the proceedings of: GeoQuébec 2015: 68th Canadian Geotechnical Conference & 7th Canadian Permafrost Conference

Session: Foundations in Cold Regions / Fondations en régions nordiques

ABSTRACT: The Ontario Feed-in Tariff (FIT) program was launched in 2009 to encourage the development of renewable energy technology in Ontario and quickly initiated the development of many solar farms across the province. Many developers applied foundation designs that were more suited to the southern United States or Europe than to Ontario conditions. This often resulted in constructability issues as well as poor foundation performance related to frost action of the solar panel supports. This paper considers several key findings and remedial measures associated with poor foundation performance at a number of solar farm developments in Ontario. Minimum adfreeze values back-calculated from the observed pile heave at one of the sites is also presented, for comparison purposes with values published in literature and local design guidelines. A discussion on retrofit measures utilized to remediate heaved piles is also provided.

RÉSUMÉ: Le programme de tarifs de rachat gara développement des énergies renouvelables. Le programme a entrainé une vague de construction de centrales solaires à travers la province. Plusieurs promoteurs ont appliqué des concepts de fondations visant généralement des sites du sud des États-Unis ou ont été rapportés en plus de problèmes reliés à la mauvaise performance des systèmes de fondations de panneaux solaires en raison du gel. Cet article présente plusieurs observations et mesures de réhabilitation en lien avec la mauvaise performance de fondations de panneaux solaires à quelques centrales solaires en Ontario. Des valeurs adhérence due au gel ont été c des données , afin de les comparer aux valeurs publiées dans la littérature et les manuels locaux soulevés par le gel est aussi présentée dans cet article.

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