Forensic Investigation of Pile Damages Using Dynamic Load Test and Continuous Monitoring, Case Study in Palembang, Indonesia

The case study was conducted in Sumatera, Indonesia, where bearing capacity and structural problems on the driven pile were investigated. The objective of the study is to investigate the causes of the integrity and bearing capacity problems of the piles. Based on the soil investigation, the upper layer is the soft layer and the underlying layer is stiff to hard layer. The investigation for the research was conducted using Continuous Monitoring using Dynamic Load Test (PDA Test) during pile driving. The continuous monitoring records the stresses, transferred energy, and capacity for each blow during pile driving. The record shows that the generated tension stress is excessive when the pile is penetrated into a dense lens layer. Based on continuous monitoring results, when a blow generates a significant incremental RMX, the tensile stress is much higher, which can be higher than the tension limit of the concrete structure. Furthermore, damage at the pile segment was detected during continuous monitoring.