Industrial Warehouse in Canelas

In October 2025, Rotopile built the foundations for a new industrial warehouse on Rua da Mina, in Canelas, Vila Nova de Gaia. The building is a steel structure, with the columns anchored in concrete caps that sit on helical piles.

The geotechnical survey, with four DPSH tests, found a 1.5 to 3.5 m surface fill with poor bearing capacity. Below it the ground gained strength gradually, through several competent horizons down to the 8.8 to 11.8 m reached in the tests; regional mapping places the site on the Schist-Greywacke Complex, common in northern Portugal. Helical piles could pass through the fill and take the loads down to the firm ground.

Each support got a pile matched to its load, in three PRO configurations: five piles in Ø114.3 × 9 mm shaft with a Ø400 × 10 mm helix; fourteen with two Ø400 × 10 mm helices plus a third Ø250 × 10 mm; and three in Ø88.9 × 9 mm shaft with a Ø400 × 10 mm helix. Twenty-two piles in all, between 3 and 4.5 m long on the Ø114.3 piles and between 4 and 7 m on the Ø88.9, depending on the ground met during driving.

Installation used a 16-tonne excavator with a Digga D50 drive head. With no drilling, no excavation spoil and no cement grout, the job was simpler and faster than concrete or micropiles, with less depth and less material, and without much of the uncertainty typical of drilled foundations in variable ground.

The solution was faster and cheaper, and low impact: no drilling spoil and far less high-carbon material. And like any helical pile, they are reversible, unscrewing if ever needed and returning the site almost to its original state.

22 helical piles · PRO range Ø88.9 to Ø114.3 mm · 3 to 7 m · 100-150 kN per pile · one 16 t excavator