Development of Screw Piles

Screw piles were first described by the Irish civil engineer Alexander Mitchell in a paper in Civil Engineer's and Architects Journal in 1848 - however, helical piles had been used for almost a decade by this point.  Screw foundations first appeared in the 1800s as pile foundations for lighthouses, and were extensively used for piers in harbours.  Between the 1850s through 1890s, more than 100 screw-pile lighthouses were erected on the east coast of the United States using screw piles.  Made originally from cast or wrought iron, they had limited bearing and tension capacities.

More recently, composite technology has been developed and patented for use in small screw piles.  Composites offer significant advantages over steel in small screw pile manufacture and installed performance.