Structural health monitoring of foundation structures—integrity testing of piles foundations and detection methods based on ground penetrating radar technology

Sheet piles are likely to be damaged while being driven into the ground, with up to hundreds of hammer blows applied to the pile top. Hammering subjects the piles to considerable soil resistance, resulting in the piles cracking and breaking. This work presents the use of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) as a non-destructive test to detect damages in sheet piles and hence allow evaluation of the integrity of the sheet piles as-built. A row of U-shaped prestressed reinforced concrete sheet piles at a canal site in China, was surveyed using GPR. The results were processed by applying a wavelet transform then interpreted to predict areas of damage in the sheet piles. Excavation and visual inspection of the piles confirmed that the damage detection by GPR was reliable and reasonably accurate.