Testing Existing Drilled Piers

[JayZ12]

My company is designing an addition to an existing building that is founded on a foundation consisting of drilled piers. We are trying to determine if part of the existing foundation can be re-used. Part of this evaluation would be testing the existing piers for integrity and capacity.

Do testing procedures exist that would supply us with this information without exposing the pier?

 

[Ron]

Not likely. Load sharing and distribution in an existing building make it difficult to determine the actual load transferred to the foundation.

Consider exposing one pier and doing a Statnamic or similar test.

 

[JayZ12]

Ron,

We would be placing a new pier cap and just reusing the piers. None of the super-structure would be reused.

We are just looking to test the piles for integrity and possibly a load test to determine if they are structurally sound. The catch is we are in design now and the existing building is occupied and will be until we begin construction on the new building. In order to test the piers I am thinking we will have to demo part of the existing building to do this which is not desirable. Ideally, we are looking for a test that could test the piers with out demolition.

 

[BigHarvey]

Ron pointed you the right direction with the statnamic test. You must accept the idea that there is no testing possible without access to the pile head. And to access the pile head you have to undertake some demolition.

 

[JayZ12]

BigHarvey,

That's what I wanted to hear! I was pretty sure testing the pier was impossible without exposing it, just wanted to make sure there wasn't some test I wasn't aware of. Thanks!