Caisson construction is a civil engineering technique built around the caisson, a watertight retaining structure that keeps a work site dry so foundation work can be carried out below the water line, used for example to build the foundation of a bridge pier, to construct a concrete dam, or to repair a ship. A caisson is built so that the water inside it can be pumped out, keeping the enclosed work area dry; when an open caisson is used to build a pier and it is impractical to reach suitable bearing soil, friction piles can be driven to create a suitable sub-foundation, with the piles tied together by a foundation pad on which the pier column is then erected.
Facts
Core PrincipleA caisson is a sealed, bottomless box or chamber filled with compressed air so that the air pressure keeps water and mud out of the enclosed space at depth, letting crews excavate or build a foundation in dry conditions. 1 FAQs
Why were caisson workers at risk of illness when they left the pressurized chamber?
Leaving compressed air too fast caused decompression sickness, first identified in caisson workers.
Workers in a pneumatic caisson worked in compressed air that kept water and mud out. When they left that pressurized environment, they had to decompress at a rate that allowed the inert gases dissolved in their body tissues to be released without symptoms. Otherwise they risked decompression sickness, a condition first identified in caisson workers and originally named caisson disease. Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, built with the help of pressurised caissons, left numerous workers killed or permanently injured by caisson disease.
Connections
Associated With
In Field
Source Caisson (engineering) (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Caisson (engineering) (Wikipedia)
Types, Pneumatic section
bottomless boxes sealed at the top and filled with compressed air to keep water and mud out at depth
In Field: Civil Engineering, Categories
Construction technology
In Group: Tunnelling, Foundation and Concrete Construction Methods, Introduction
In geotechnical engineering, a caisson (; borrowed from French caisson 'box', from Italian cassone 'large box', an augmentative of cassa) is a watertight retaining structure.
View the Source2. History of Pneumatic Caisson (Daiho Corporation)
History of Pneumatic Caisson, Triger paragraphQuote, History of Pneumatic Caisson, Triger paragraph
It is said that the world's first ground excavation utilizing air pressure was excavation/go down using iron pipes on the sand bank of Loire River in France, conducted by M. Triger in 1841.
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