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    Standard Method statement-PIT

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    mahesh naik
    The document provides details on conducting low strain integrity testing on piles to evaluate continuity and potential defects. Key points: 1) Pile integrity testing uses low-strain impacts from a handheld hammer to detect defects like necking or soil inclusions. 2) The scope involves testing 100% of piles on site before reinforcement is placed. 3) Testing procedures and data processing are standardized, and reports will classify piles as acceptable, questionable, or rejected.

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    Standard Method statement-PIT

    Uploaded by

    mahesh naik
    175 views4 pages
    The document provides details on conducting low strain integrity testing on piles to evaluate continuity and potential defects. Key points: 1) Pile integrity testing uses low-strain impacts from a handheld hammer to detect defects like necking or soil inclusions. 2) The scope involves testing 100% of piles on site before reinforcement is placed. 3) Testing procedures and data processing are standardized, and reports will classify piles as acceptable, questionable, or rejected.

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    The document provides details on conducting low strain integrity testing on piles to evaluate continuity and potential defects. Key points: 1) Pile integrity testing uses low-strain impacts from a handheld hammer to detect defects like necking or soil inclusions. 2) The scope involves testing 100% of piles on site before reinforcement is placed. 3) Testing procedures and data processing are standardized, and reports will classify piles as acceptable, questionable, or rejected.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    175 views4 pages

    Standard Method statement-PIT

    Uploaded by

    mahesh naik
    The document provides details on conducting low strain integrity testing on piles to evaluate continuity and potential defects. Key points: 1) Pile integrity testing uses low-strain impacts from a handheld hammer to detect defects like necking or soil inclusions. 2) The scope involves testing 100% of piles on site before reinforcement is placed. 3) Testing procedures and data processing are standardized, and reports will classify piles as acceptable, questionable, or rejected.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 4

    METHOD STATEMENT FOR LOW STRAIN INTEGRITY TEST ON PILE

    1.0 Introduction
    Pile Integrity Testing (PIT) is a Non-Destructive integrity test method for foundation piles.
    The method evaluates continuity of the pile shaft and provides information on any potential
    defects due to honeycombs, necking (cross-section reduction), potential bulbs, sudden changes
    in soil stratum, concrete quality in terms of wave speed etc. It is known as “Low Strain”
    method since it requires the impact of only a small hand-held hammer and the resultant strains
    are of extremely low magnitude. The test procedure is standardized as per ASTM D5882 and
    also forms part of various specifications and code provisions worldwide. The number of tests
    shall be decided by the engineer to the project.

    The testing method and interpretation requires expert interpretation and analysis. It is desirable
    that the agency employed for testing proves its competence by submitting past studies and
    expertise. In India, Geo Dynamics owns and operates the Pile Integrity Tester system procured
    from Pile Dynamics, Inc., and has several years of experience in testing and is considered to
    be a pioneer in country.

    2.0 Scope of Work and Application


    The current scope of work involves conducting low strain integrity testing on 100% of the
    piles at the project site. This shall be done after the piles have been chipped upto sound
    concrete level (cutoff level in most cases) and before tying the reinforcement cage. Reports
    shall be submitted for each pile as per the method and requirements described below.

    The purpose of testing is evaluate the pile for potential defects that maybe caused due to
    necking, honey-combs, soil inclusions, cold joints etc. The method also evaluates the bulge or
    bulbs inside the pile but a bulb is not considered as a defect.

    3.0 References:
    • ASTM D5882-07. Standard Test Method for Low-Strain Integrity Testing of Piles.
    American Society for Testing and Materials.
    • IS:14893. Non-Destructive Integrity Testing of Piles (NDT) - Guidelines
    • Likins G. & Rausche F., “Recent Advances and Proper Use of PDI Low Strain Pile
    Integrity Testing”, Application of Stress-wave Theory to Piles, Rotterdam, 2000
    • Vaidya Ravikiran & Shah D.L., “Pile Diagnostics By Low Strain Integrity Testing”, IGC
    2001, “The New Millenium Conference”, Indore, India, December 2001.

    4.0 Test Equipment


    Equipment: PIT-V Equipment manufactured by Pile Dynamics, Inc., USA compliant with
    ASTM D5882
    Software: PIT-W 2009 Software Standard Version
    This is currently best equipment available worldwide with use in most countries across the
    world and Geo Dynamics operates more than 20 such equipments in India. The equipment
    includes a sensitive accelerometer and a non-instrumented hammer, in addition to the device.
    The data is displayed on the field for preliminary evaluation and interpretation, and a field
    printout is possible.

    5.0 Site Arrangements:


    The pile head with sound concrete shall be available for testing. For this pile head should be
    chipped off up to cut off level or up to the depth where sound concrete is available.The sound
    concrete level can be obtained after removal of any debris, muck etc. from the top.

    The pile concrete should attain atleast 75% of it required compressive strength before testing
    is conducted. This can be checked with the help of 7 and 28 days cube test results.

    The pile head at the testing level shall be made reasonably flat by chipping or by chisel. In
    some cases it can even be done using a grinder or carborundum stone. Ensure that concrete is
    sound, hard and good. No high strength mortar or cement paste shall be applied on the pile top
    to make it smooth and even.

    The projecting rebars need to be bent outside for easy access within core region. Safe and
    reasonable access to the pile is the responsibility of the client.

    Data supplied at the time of testing shall include length of the pile from testing level, cutoff
    level of the pile, pile diameter and pile reference as well as location. Soil information available
    for the location or in the vicinity shall be provided and is a valuable tool for interpretation.
    Additional data like pile installation records, load test results etc., shall also be supplied on
    request.

    6.0 Test Procedure


    The testing shall be conducted by an experienced engineer / technician after atleast 75% of the
    required compressive strength of concrete is achieved. The concrete at the pile top surface
    must be relatively smooth with sufficient space for attachment of the motion sensing device
    and hammer impact area.

    The testing involves attachment of an accelerometer onto the pile top (not near its edge) with
    the help of bonding material like candle wax, vaseline etc. After attachment, the pile is
    impacted with a hand held device (a hand held hammer). Typically six blows are impacted to
    the hammer and an average of similar of these blows constitutes one data set.
    The test involves collection of several data sets for each pile so that a reasonable inference can
    be obtained for each pile. For piles having diameter 600mm and above, testing maybe
    conducted on atleast 3 locations, whereas minimum one location is enough for smaller
    diameter piles.
    7.0 Data Processing

    The data collected using PIT equipment shall be processed using PIT
    PIT-W
    W 2009 software. Once
    the hammer is impacted onto the pile a wave is generated. This wave moves down the pile and
    as it moves down it gets weak. It also getss affected by surrounding soil, projecting
    reinforcement etc.

    To ensure that the signals are clearly visible for interpretation, data shall be processed in terms
    of Magnification (MA to enhance the energy lost), reduce reflections from soil to evaluate
    concrete (HI PASS Filter), and re reduce
    duce reflections from reinforcement (Wavelet Filter).
    Filter) The
    MA shall be a factor of the length of the pile and normally must be equal to the pile length.
    The Magnifcation Delay shall be default 20% to avoid errors in interpretation.

    or good or damaged piles shall generally be as per Figure: 1 and is also


    The typical data sets for
    defined in ASTM D5882.

    IMPACT TOE RESPONSE DEFECT

    Fig: 1 Typical Velocity


    locity Trace for Good Pile Typical Velocity Trace for Damaged Pile

    8.0 Report Submission


    On completion of field testing, a report shall be submitted and shall clearly describe the
    following
     Uniformity of pile
     Changes in cross
    cross-section qualitatively. i.e. bulge or defect due to
    necking, etc.
     Sudden changes in soil stratum based on soil profile and graphs.
     Concrete quality in terms of wave speed. A normal range of wave
    speed shall be between 3500m/sec to 4200m/sec

    The report shall clearly indicated piles that are acceptable or questionable
    onable or rejected. The
    comments shall generally be based on the following guidelines.
    1. Piles with toe response and no defect apparent shall be classified as acceptable.

    2. Piles with no toe response and significant reduction or defect above the pile toe shall be
    rejected and replacement or any other remedial action maybe considered. The test
    engineer should specify the approximate location of defect in such a case.
    3. Piles with a sudden major increase in resistance or impedance may not show toe response
    and are termed as inconclusive and a typical such pile can be selected for static / high
    strain dynamic test at the discretion of the engineer.

    4. Piles that show toe response but some impedance reduction / defect maybe under-rated /
    replaced / repaired / or subjected to additional high strain dynamic or static testing at the
    discretion of the engineer.

    Acceptance / rejection of piles in Para: 3 and 4 above shall also be based on construction
    records (concrete consumption, geotechnical data, and construction method) that will provide
    valuable help in result interpretation.

    9.0 Limitations
    Certain limitations are inherent in the low strain test method. These limitations must be
    understood and taken into consideration in making the final integrity evaluation.

    1. The test method can generally evaluate for piles upto an L/D ratio of 45 to 50. However,
    this also depends on the soil resistance that may attenuate the signals.

    2. The method can normally identify the first major bulb or a major defect. Interpretation
    may not be possible to evaluate multiple bulges or defects as the wave may not travel
    beyond the first anomaly.

    3. The method is intended to find major anomalies and defects and small defects generally
    up to 10% of pile diameter may not be identified with this method.

    4. Although the test system can be used to evaluate length of piles, the determination of pile
    length is approximate within a range of ± 5 – 10% due to variation in concrete density.
    This implies that the method cannot evaluate defects that could be present in the bottom
    5%-10% of the pile shaft.

    5. The method is not applicable to steel piles, micro piles, jointed pre-cast piles etc.

    6. The method cannot be used to derive the pile capacity.

    10.0 Risk and Hazard Assessment


    The Low Strain Integrity Test involves a hand held equipment and small hammer. No heavy
    machinery is involved in such testing and hence risk associated with such testing is classified
    as negligible.

    Care should be taken to avoid movement of heavy machinery around the testing area.

    If excavations are deep, then precautions should be taken to avoid collapse of soil at the time
    of testing.

    **********

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