Low strain pile integrity testing has been the most widely used method for evaluating pile integrity over the years due to its simplicity, ease of testing and cheaper costs. This method involves impacting the pile axially to produce longitudinal waves and obtaining the velocity or accelerometer measurements at a sensor mounted on the pile head. There are several limitations and challenges in using this method such as (i) inability to handle highly variable cross section or multiple discontinuities (ii) not suitable for testing steel sheets, H-piles or timber piles (iii) inability to resolve smaller defects (iv) interference from the pile cap and superstructure (v) requirement for expert user and subjective results and (vi) inability to quantify the flaw. On the other hand, flexural waves, which can be easily generated through impacting the pile side, are seldom utilized for pile integrity testing owing to their dispersive nature and complexities involved in analyzing them. The aim of this work is to develop a new technique where both longitudinal and flexural waves are combined to better evaluate the pile integrity. The combined use of both longitudinal and flexural waves can help reduce the subjectivity and increase the sensitivity to different flaw types.

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Pile Integrity Evaluation Through Combined Analysis of Longitudinal and Flexural Waves

  • Vivek Samu

摘要

Low strain pile integrity testing has been the most widely used method for evaluating pile integrity over the years due to its simplicity, ease of testing and cheaper costs. This method involves impacting the pile axially to produce longitudinal waves and obtaining the velocity or accelerometer measurements at a sensor mounted on the pile head. There are several limitations and challenges in using this method such as (i) inability to handle highly variable cross section or multiple discontinuities (ii) not suitable for testing steel sheets, H-piles or timber piles (iii) inability to resolve smaller defects (iv) interference from the pile cap and superstructure (v) requirement for expert user and subjective results and (vi) inability to quantify the flaw. On the other hand, flexural waves, which can be easily generated through impacting the pile side, are seldom utilized for pile integrity testing owing to their dispersive nature and complexities involved in analyzing them. The aim of this work is to develop a new technique where both longitudinal and flexural waves are combined to better evaluate the pile integrity. The combined use of both longitudinal and flexural waves can help reduce the subjectivity and increase the sensitivity to different flaw types.