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Characterization of Concrete Pile Groups with 2-D Seismic Waveform Tomography

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Abstract

Currently, about 28,000 bridges over water in the United States are classified as having missing key foundation information such as number and distribution of piles and pile lengths. The as-built drawings of buried concrete piles or drilled shafts are critical in assessing the hydraulic scour vulnerability of bridges. This paper presents an application of seismic waveform tomography for characterization of shaft groups. The capability of an existing 2-D Gauss–Newton seismic waveform tomography method was investigated on challenging subsurface conditions for groups of drilled shafts with various lengths within each group. The method was applied to field experimental datasets collected at the National Geotechnical Experimental Site (NGES) at College Station, Texas. The site contains two groups of four and five drilled shafts with various lengths from 10.4 to 24.1 m. Seismic wave fields were measured on the ground surface at the edges of the two pile groups, and analyzed by the 2-D waveform tomography method. Seismic results showed that waveform analysis was able to well characterize the pile groups. Individual drilled shafts and soil between them are distinguished, and lengths were also generally predicted.

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Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported by Federal Highway Administration under contract number DTFH61-14-D-00010. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Highway Administration. The authors would like to thank Professors Briaud and Everett of the Texas A&M University for graduate field assistance and logistic support for the conduct of field work at the NGES test site.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida, 365 Weil Hall, P.O. Box 116580, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA

    Khiem T. Tran

  2. Federal Highway Administration, Office of Infrastructures R&D, 6300 Georgetown Pike, McLean, VA, 22101, USA

    Farrokh (Frank) Jalinoos

  3. Department of Civil Engineering, City College of the City University of New York, Steinman Hall T-121, Convent Avenue at 140th Street, New York, NY, 10031, USA

    Anil K. Agrawal

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  1. Khiem T. Tran
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  2. Farrokh (Frank) Jalinoos
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Correspondence to Khiem T. Tran.

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Tran, K.T., Jalinoos, F.(. & Agrawal, A.K. Characterization of Concrete Pile Groups with 2-D Seismic Waveform Tomography. J Nondestruct Eval 38, 25 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10921-019-0565-x

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