Abstract—Many civil structures, such as buildings, bridges, towers, dams and other massive structures sometimes need special foundation in the form of piles, built using precast and cast in situ techniques. Sometimes, precast piles may get damaged under the pile driving impact process, due to which long and deep cracks may appear. On the other hand, "necks" or "bulbs" may be created in the process of drilling. In both cases, these defects may affect considerably the bearing capacity of the piles. So the structural evaluation and monitoring of new and existing piles are becoming increasingly important. This is normally carried out by using pile integrity tester (PIT), which is a non-destructive integrity testing instrument for assessing the integrity of pile foundations. The instrument consists of a small accelerometer, a hand held hammer and a data acquisition unit. The length and defects in pile foundations are evaluated by identifying and analyzing the travelling time, phase, direction, and the amplitude of the reflections captured by the accelerometer. This paper presents a study on the damage mechanics of typical cast in situ pile foundations through PIT. 

Index Terms—transient dynamic analysis, resolution, mobility

Cite: Surya J Varma, N Gopalakrishnan, K Sathish Kumar， and P Eapen Sakaria, "Structural Integrity Evaluation of Pile Foundations by Pile Integrity Testing," International Journal of Structural and Civil Engineering Research, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 133-140, August 2013.