Verifications of the Impact-echo Technique for Integrity Evaluations of the Drilled Shaft using Full Scale Tests

현장시험에 의한 충격반향기법의 말뚝 건전도 검사 적용성 평가

Impact-echo test, a kind of simple and economical method to evaluate the integrity of drilled piles has some limitations to use because the stress wave can be generated only on the head of a pile and the wave propagation in the pile with surrounding soils are very complicated. Numerical analyses and model tests in the laboratory have shown that both the ratio of length to diameter of a pile and the stiffness ratio of pile to soil have influence on the resolution of testing results. Full scale testing piles which have artificial defects were used to verify the capability of impact-echo technique as a tool for the pile integrity evaluation. Behaviour of the reflected signal of stress wave was investigated according to the type of defects. Elastic modulus of the pile was calculated using the wave velocity in the pile and the unconfined strength of concrete specimen. Influences of the stiffness difference between the pile and the ground on the characteristics of a wave signal were also examined.