In-Situ Study on Nondestructive Detection of Pile Integrity Using Lateral Excitation

Abstract

A new detection method using lateral excitation to test pile integrity is proposed. Concrete piles were subjected to lateral excitation, which produced transverse waves. These waves were processed with the Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT), and the results were compared with those of a nondestructive testing method based on vertical excitation. The locations of the defects in the pile body detected by the lateral excitation method agree well with those derived by the vertical excitation method, which indicates that HHT analysis of the lateral acceleration wave signal obtained by HHT can detect defects in a pile body. Thus, lateral excitation technology can be applied in integrity assessments of pile foundations that have constraints or structural limits on their top.