A New Orleans contractor tried and failed four times to drive sheet piles through a dense soil layer with progressively larger vibratory hammers and an impact hammer. The fifth attempt is succeeding, thanks to the right tool: a hydraulic press that slides the steel in with great force, rather than banging it down.
In late 2005, as part of emergency repairs after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers let a contract to beef up a stretch of concrete I-wall on the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal with, among other things, a sheet-pile wall to block seepage through a sand strata.