CAKAR AYAM (CHICKEN CLAW) CONSTRUCTION, THE GOLDEN IDEA OF AN INDONESIAN PROFESSOR

When we see some big buildings such as high-voltage-electricity towers, airplane hangars and apron, runway and taxi, fertilizer plant, and other hundreds of building in Indonesia, we may not think that the construction of the buildings use Cakar Ayam (Chicken Claw) as their foundations. The brilliant idea of using Cakar Ayam as a foundation of big and high building comes from Prof. Dr. Ir. Sedijatmo, an Indonesian professor.

In 1961 Prof. Dr. Ir. Sedijatmo worked as a PLN official. At that time, he faced a difficult problem to finish seven high-voltage electrical towers in the swamp area in Ancol, Jakarta. Unfortunately, the soil in the area was soft. With the difficulty, two towers were successfully established with conventional foundation system, while the rest of the seven towers had to be finished soon. As time was very pressing, whereas a conventional foundation system was very difficult to be applied in the swamp, the new system was sought to address those issues. Later on, Prof Dr. Ir Sedijatmo found an idea of using Cakar Ayam (Chicken Claw) methods.

As an alternative system to solve the problem of creating building above soft soil, Cakar Ayam Foundation increasingly used by many construction companies. This was because more people understood that the role of foundations determined the age and stability of a building construction. Besides, modification of Cakar Ayam System technology can be used for road construction over soft ground.

Now, Cakar Ayam System has been known in many countries. Even, this foundation system has gained international patents in 11 countries, namely: Indonesia, East Germany, England, France, Italy, Belgium, Canada, USA, West Germany, the Netherlands, and Danish.