Bakau pile is widely used in Singapore primarily to support small box culvert.

There are however cases whereby Bakau pile is used to reinforce the ground below a raft or footing for a small building a few storey high. The Bakau pile is essentially the tr unk of a tree, with branches trim off. It is not treated. The bark of the trunk are still attached and it is not perfectly straight i.e. in its natural form. It is cheap and easy to install. However, it is only used in soft soil such as marine clay, peatly clay etc. I think it will have problem going thru' soil with SPT N value of 10 or thereabout depending on actual site condition. The Bakau pile commonly used are 75 mm in diameter and 5m in length. For installation beyond 5m, the piles are joined using a metal sheath and nails. Bakau pile are rarely (if ever) installed more than 10 m in length. The rule of the thumb we use here is a capacity of 1 metric ton per Bakau pile. There are some indicative values for the dry stresses and moduli of elasticity f or Bakau wood. The values are as follows: Bending and tension parallel to grain - 7.24 Compression parallel to grain - 5.52 Compression perpendicular to grain -0.55 Shear parallel to grain - 0.62 Mean Modulus of elasticity - 9300 Minimum Modulus of elast icity - 5500 (all units in N/mm2) Note: 1)the values are indicative and varies from pile to pile 2)the valuse are for a moisture content not exceeding 19%