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A CASE STUDY OF FROST ACTION ON LIGHTLY LOADED PILES AT ONTARIO SOLAR FARMS
Session: Foundations in Cold Regions / Fondations en régions nordiques
Pierre-Philippe Levasseur, Golder Associates Ltd (Canada)
Paul Dittrich, Golder Associates Ltd. (Canada)
Michael Maher, Golder Associates Ltd. (Canada)
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.
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