Sonic echo integrity

The increasing requirement for quality control has led to the development of practical, inexpensive and reliable testing techniques. These include the sonic echo integrity test.

Low strain integrity tests examine the response of a pile to a small hammer blow at the pile head. The induced stress wave travels down the pile shaft and reflected waves from significant changes in pile shaft acoustic impedance are registered by a transducer held against the pile head.

The measured signals are digitised by the test unit, stored internally and downloaded onto PC for hard copy reporting.

PMC has selected the most modern, battery operated data acquisition systems currently available.

In excess of 200 piles per day may be tested depending on access and pile head condition. Toe reflections may be observed up to 30 pile diameters in favourable conditions but defects such as cracks or splices prevent the low energy wave detecting deeper defects.

Experienced operators are able to detect significant physical features at an early stage, allowing quick evaluation and enhancing the reliability of the foundation.