Measurement of Pier Foundation Depth

[ujinkim]

Hi~
Recently, I asked the geotechnical company to find out the depth of pier foundation of sself-supporting tower. They did excavation to find out the depth, but they couldn't excavte deeper than 12 feet.

Is there any other practical method to measure the depth of pier foundation?

Thanks a lot~

 

[csd72]

I believe that they can do this ultrasonically.

Look up ultrasonic testing and give one of the local companies a call.

csd

 

[msucog]

there is a couple nondestructive methods.

parallel seismic seemed to work pretty good. i've used it to help see how deep bridge caissons are and to see if they're founded on soil, pwr, or rock. it required drilling and casing holes next to the piles. i used it in combination with ultrasonic testing. we had to subcontract the work out to another firm because we didn't have the specific (and rather expensive) equipment but the work and data analysis itself is pretty simple if you're familiar with seismic survey work.

 

[msucog]

oh, and if the top of the pier is accessible, you could always drill down through it. this obviously comes with "issues" of its own.

 

[msucog]

what a coincidence---i got an email update about these guys a few minutes ago. see if this helps.

http://olsonengineering.com/2007site/main.php?section=methods&page=21

 

[msucog]

oops...wrong link...here's the one more related to what you're interested in.

http://olsonengineering.com/2007site/main.php?section=methods&page=1

 

[TDAA]

Puls Echo Testing will show that. Also give an indication ofany (some) defects, such as changes in diameter, or soil inclusions.

 

[dgillette]

I believe Goble, Rausche, and Likins can do pulse echo for you. They are in Warrensville Heights, OH (Cleveland area).

http://www.pile.com/grl/

 

[DarthSoilsGuy]

Maybe I'm a little late but I was surfing the web and a I came across this link and I remembered seeing a post on it a while back -cheers

http://www.cflhd.gov/AGM/engApplications/BridgeSystemSubstructure/21DeterminingUnknownD.htm

 

[jdonville]

Here's the same thing in a downloadable PDF.

http://www.cflhd.gov/agm/SiteVersions/geotechPdf.pdf