Annual Transactions of IESL, pp.

78 - 84, 2006
© The Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka

Interpretation of Pile Integrity Test (PIT) Results

H. S. Thilakasiri

Abstract: A defect present in a pile will severely reduce the structural load carrying capacity of
the pile. Therefore, post construction tests to verify the integrity of bored piles are extremely
important. A most commonly used post construction integrity test is the low strain Pile Integrity Test
commonly referred as PIT. In this type of integrity testing, a low strain dynamic impulse is given to
the pile top by a hand held hammer and the velocity of the pile top is monitored using an
accelerometer. The low strain impulse will generate a low strain wave that propagates through the
pile and reflected at places where there are changes in the properties of concrete, cross sectional area
of the pile or stiffness of the soil surrounding the pile. Such reflections are detected by the
accelerometer at the pile top and the time Vs velocity plot recorded by the accelerometer is used to
identify any defects in the pile shaft. There are two main methods of data analysis associated with the
PIT namely, the Sonic Pulse Echo method and the Transient Response Analysis (TRA) method.
In this research, analysis of PIT records related to the Sri Lankan soil conditions, construction and
design practices are investigated using the Sonic Pulse Echo method. In the analysis, variation of the
actual PIT records according to the commonly encountered soil conditions in Sri Lanka are presented.
Furthermore, wave propagation through the pile is modeled using the Wave Equation Method. An
MS Excel spreadsheet is developed to model the PIT using the wave equation method. The developed
computer program is capable of dividing the pile into a maximum of 200 elements and incorporating
varying soil stiffness along the pile shaft. An artificial velocity pulse is given to the top most element
to simulate the hammer blow given in the PIT while monitoring the velocity of the same element for
varying ground conditions and the defects commonly encountered in Sri Lanka. The location of the
defects and its appearance in the velocity plot is also investigated.

1.0 Introduction
Bored and cast in-situ concrete piles are very
widely used in Sri Lanka for pile foundations.
In this method of pile construction, a borehole
is created in the ground by drilling and
subsequently filling it with fresh concrete to
form the pile. During the drilling process
bentonite slurry is used to stabilize the sides of
the borehole. The concreting is carried out from
the ground surface using a tremie pipe and
systematically bentonite is replaced by concrete
during the concreting process. Common
problems encountered due to such pile
construction practice are (i) necking of the pile
due to inflow of soil into uncased boreholes, (ii)
mixing concrete and bentonite and (iii)
collapsing of sides into the borehole and mixing
of soil and concrete. If such a defect occurred in
a pile the structural load carrying capacity of
the pile will be severely reduced. Therefore,
post construction tests to verify the integrity of
bored piles are extremely important. If
defective piles are identified such piles could be
rectified or replaced with new piles to avoid
failure of the foundation. But it should be
emphasized here that even if a pile is proved to
be a solid integral pile from integrity testing, it
doesn’t guarantee that the pile has the required
load carrying capacity due to shear failure of
the soil.
Commonly used post constructional pile
integrate testing methods are given below:
i. Coring through the pile to obtain
continuous concrete core samples
of the pile and testing the obtained
core samples to identify weak
sections;
ii. Load testing of piles using static or
dynamic methods
iii. Low strain dynamic testing of
piles using Pile Integrity Tester
(PIT);
iv. Cross-hole Sonic Logging (CSL);
Eng. (Dr.) H.S.Thilakasiri, C. Eng., MIE(SL), B.Sc. Eng.
(Hons) (Moratuwa), M.Sc (Lond),PhD (USA), Senior
Lecturer, Department of Civil Engineering, University of
Moratuwa..

ENGINEER 78
Out of the above methods, coring and load
testing are expensive and time consuming. Hammer
Those methods cannot be applied to large
number of piles in a site and sometimes are not Accelero
conclusive, for example, coring through one meter
side of the pile can miss defects on the other
side of the pile. But these two methods have
some advantages such as: (i) Ability to correct
any defect through the hole created in the pile
during coring; and (ii) Capacity is also assessed
during load testing in addition to integrity
Figure. 1- PIT testing of bored and cast insitu
testing.
concrete piles
Other two methods are base on dynamic wave
propagation through piles and are very widely
In the Sonic Pulse Echo method of analyzing
used for integrity testing of piles. However,
PIT records using the velocity variation of the
Cross-hole Sonic Logging (CSL) requires
pile top with time, a normal hammer without a
installation of PVC or steel tubes in the pile
load cell is used to generate the stress wave.
during casting stage and that method is used
The low strain impulse generates a low strain
only in large project where such additional cost
wave that propagates through the pile with a
can be justified. Therefore, in this article most
velocity of, C, referred to as the wave velocity.
commonly used integrity testing of bored piles
For a linear elastic pile having a length one
in Sri Lanka, the low strain dynamic testing
order of magnitude higher than its width, wave
using Pile Integrity Tester (PIT) is discussed
velocity is given by:
and important factors related to interpretation
of the results are presented. E
C=
In the low strain Pile Integrity Test, commonly ρ
referred as PIT, a low strain dynamic impulse is
Where E and ρ are Young’s modulus and mass
given to the pile top by a hand held hammer
density of pile material respectively. As the
and the velocity of the pile top is monitored
stress wave passes through any section of the
using an accelerometer as shown in Figure 1.
pile, it will impart an oscillation to the particles
The low strain impulse will generate a low
of that section and the particles of that section
strain wave that propagates through the pile
will move at a certain velocity referred to as
and reflected at places where there are changes
particle velocity. The force, F, due to the stress
in the properties of concrete, cross sectional
wave at any section is related to the particle
area of the pile or stiffness of the soil
velocity, v, at that section during the
surrounding the pile. Such reflections are
propagation of the dynamic wave by:
detected by the accelerometer at the pile top
and the time Vs velocity plot recorded by the F = Zv
accelerometer is used to identify any defects in Where Z is defined as the impedance of the pile
the pile shaft. There are two main methods of at that section and it is given by:
data analysis associated with the PIT, namely, Z = EA / C
the sonic pulse echo method and the transient Where A is the cross sectional area of the pile.
response method. The main difference between As the downward traveling stress wave, of
these two methods is that in the transient magnitude FDown, propagates through the pile,
response method of analysis both velocity and if it encounters change in the impedance of the
force measurements during the hammer impact pile at a particular section, a reflected wave is
are needed. Therefore, in the transient response generated. For example if the impedance varies
method, a hammer instrumented with a load from Z1 to Z2 a reflected wave of magnitude Fup
cell is used instead of a normal hammer. In Sri is generated. The magnitude of FDown and Fup
Lanka, mostly Sonic Pulse Echo method is used are related to impedance change by the
to analyze Pit records and, therefore, the following expression:
discussion in this paper is limited to that [ Z 2 − Z1 ]
method of analysis.
FUp , = FDown
[ Z 2 + Z1 ]
It is evident from the above equation that the
magnitude of the upward traveling wave
depends on the difference in the impedance
encountered and depending on the sign of (Z2 –

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Z1) the generated upward traveling wave could
be tension or compression. Since downward
traveling wave is normally a compression
wave, the upward traveling wave will be a
tension wave if the wave travels from high
impedance to low impedance (Z1 > Z2) and
vise-versa. Therefore, it should be noted here
that the PIT identifies change in the impedance,
which is a combination of the pile cross
sectional area, Young’s modulus of the pile
material and the density of the pile material.
Apart from the reflections of the downward
traveling wave due to the changes in the
impedance of the pile section, soil resistance
variations along the pile shaft can also generate
upward traveling reflections. However, such
reflections due to soil resistance variations are
of low frequency and an experienced
interpreter could separate the upward traveling
waves generated due to impedance variations
of the pile shaft from that generated due to soil
resistance variations.
Pile top
velocity
2L/c
2X/c
Time
T result, inability to identify the
Depth
Figure 2 - Schematic diagram showing
reflections from necking and toe
The intensity of the defect is quantified in terms
of the parameter β defined as Z1/Z2. Following
classification of defects could be made based on
the value of β (PDA User’s manual).
ENGINEER
β=Z1/Z2 Damage assessment
1.0 Uniform
0.8 – 1.0 Slight damage
0.6 – 0.8 Damage
0.6 > Pile with a major
discontinuity
If the pile is defect-free, the wave will travel
down to the pile toe and will be reflected back
to arrive at the pile top after a time period of
2L/C, where L and C are length of the pile and
wave velocity through the pile respectively.
Any other reflection before this time, if any, is
due to changes in the pile impedance or the soil
resistance. The above mentioned downward
and upward traveling waves are illustrated in
Figure 2 for a pile of length L. The pile cross
section is reduced at a depth of X from the pile
top and the downward traveling compression
wave is reflected back and arrives the pile top
after 2X/C time period from the initial input
wave and the reflection from the pile toe arrives
at the pile top after a time period of 2L/C.
Even though the defect is easily identified from
the above idealized PIT record, the
interpretation of actual records can be very
difficult and complicated due to:
i. Attenuation of the stress wave as it
travels down the pile shaft and as a
reflections;
ii. Presence of the reflections due to
soil resistance variations along the
pile shaft;
iii. Masking of the reflections due to
defects by the reflections due to
buldged sections of the pile shaft;
and
iv. Other distortions of the collected
data due to improper pile top
cleaning, loose attachment of the
accelerometer to the pile top etc.
In this research, wave propagation through the
pile is modeled using the Wave Equation
Method. In the wave equation method, the pile
is divided into small elements and the equation
of motion of each element is considered during
wave propagation using the finite difference
method. An MS Excel spreadsheet is developed
to model the PIT using the wave equation
method. The developed computer program is
capable of dividing the pile into a maximum of
200 elements and incorporating varying soil
stiffness along the pile shaft. An artificial
80
velocity pulse is given to the top most element between the ultimate skin friction on the
to simulate the hammer blow given in the PIT element and the limiting elastic displacement of
while monitoring the velocity of the same the soil spring (skin quake). The last pile
element for varying ground conditions and the element is connected to the element above it by
defects commonly encountered in Sri Lanka. a pile spring. The soil resistance at the end is
The ground conditions considered in this represented by a soil spring, with stiffness k(p),
research consists of typical soil layering and and a dashpot, with damping coefficient (Jend).
bedrock conditions found at construction sites. K(p) is estimated as the ratio between the
The location of the defects and its appearance in ultimate end bearing capacity of the pile and
the velocity plot is also investigated. Finally, the elastic limit of the end spring (end quake).
some typical velocity plots obtained from actual The equilibrium of each of these pile elements
PIT are also presented to demonstrate the is considered during a hammer blow and the
practical applications of the analysis. resulting equations of motion in the time
domain are solved using finite difference
2.0 Wave equation method method. Interested users are referred to
Thilakasiri et al [2] for complete formulation of
In the wave equation method, the entire pile- wave equation method.
soil system is modeled as a series of masses
supported and connected by set of springs and
dashpots. The size of the individual mass
elements and the stiffness of the springs reflect
the mass and stiffness of various components of
the real pile and the driving system. The soil is
represented by a series of elasto-plastic springs
and linear viscous dashpots. A schematic
diagram of the entire system is shown in Figure
3.
In the wave equation analysis, first introduced
by Smith [1] to solve the 1-D wave propagation
in a pile, the pile is divided into a number of
elements and the mass of each of the elements
is lumped at the nodal points as shown in
Figure 3. The intermediate pile elements are
connected by pile springs, of which the stiffness
(k) estimated by AE/∇L, Where A, E and ∇L
are the cross sectional area of the pile, Youngs Elasto – plastic Soil
springs
modulus of pile material and length of an
element respectively. The soil resistance, at the
interface between pile element and the Soil dashpots
surrounding soil, during propagation of the
stress wave consists of two parts: (i) a static
resistance, proportional to the deformation and;
(ii) a damping resistance, proportional to the
velocity of the pile element. The static Pile
springs
resistance by the surrounding soil on the pile
elements is represented by an elastic perfectly
plastic soil spring, in which the force is given
by the axial compression (δ) of the spring
multiplied by the stiffness (k/) of the spring.
According to the wave equation analysis
proposed by Smith (1960), the damping
resistance is represented by a viscous dashpot, Figure 3 - Pile-soil system as discretized by
in which the force generated is estimated by the Smith (1960)
multiplying the damping coefficient Jskin of the
dashpot, velocity of the pile element (v) and the 3.0 Simulation of PIT using the Wave
axial force in the spring (k/δ). The stiffness (k/) of Equation Method
the side soil spring is estimated as the ratio

ENGINEER 81
Wave equation method, explained above, was cm/s 9: #120121122 MA: 10.00
0.30
programmed using MS Excel spread sheet. The MD: 5.80
developed program has the capability of LE: 9.12
discretizing a pile into 200 elements and carry WS: 3592
0.15 LO: 0.00
out the finite difference time simulation of a
HI: 0.00
25m long pile using very small time step size of PV: 1
about 0.000005 seconds until the toe reflection is T1: 24
0.00
reached at the pile top (after 2L/C from the
initial impulse of the hammer). The input pulse
of a PIT hammer is simulated using a triangular T1 Toe
-0.15
velocity impulse given to the top most element Vel
and the discretized pile-soil system is allowed 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9m
to vibrate freely under the given velocity
impulse. The response of the accelerometer (a)
attached at the top of the pile is obtained by cm/s 11: #82838485 MA: 10.00
0.60
recording the velocity of the top most pile MD: 4.30
LE: 9.60
element. The soil along the pile shaft could be
WS: 3531
divided into five layers and the skin friction 0.30 LO: 0.00
resistance of the five layers could be changed HI: 0.00
independently. However, dynamic soil PV: 1
properties of the soil along the pile shaft cannot T1: 33
0.00
be changed for different soil layers along the
pile shaft. The developed program can simulate
T1 Toe
the variation of the impedance of the pile shaft -0.30 Vel
by changing the stiffness of the spring
representing the stiffness of the pile elements. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9m

In the simulation process, a 25m long, 1m (b)

diameter pile is considered. The smith damping
factors for the skin and toe are set at 0.1 and 0.2 Figure 4 - Actual PIT records similar piles
m/sec respectively. The Young’s modulus of from the same site (a) showing a positive
the pile material is assumed to be 35x106 kPa velocity reflection from the toe and (b)
and the unit weight of concrete is assumed to showing negative velocity reflection from the
be 24 kN/m3 resulting in a wave speed of 3800 toe.
m/sec. The time taken for the toe reflection to
observe at the pile top is about 14 msecs. Ve l o c i t y Vs Ti m e
K-toe=5000000
3.1 Observation of the toe reflection 0. 006 K-toe=500000
0. 005
K-toe=250000
0. 004
It is a very common observation that the toe 0. 003 K-toe=50000
reflection of a pile is observed as a positive or 0. 002
K-toe=50000
negative velocity pulse for similar piles from 0. 001

the same site. Figure 4 show PIT records from 0

-0. 001
0 0. 002 0. 004 0. 006 0. 008 0. 01 0. 012 0. 014 0. 016

the same sites with toe reflection is observed as -0. 002

positive and negative velocity pulses in Figures -0. 003

4(a) and 4(b) respectively. -0. 004

-0. 005

T i me ( s e c o n d s )

Figure 5 - Velocity records with different toe

stiffness
The above observation could be explained
using the wave equation simulation program
developed by varying the stiffness of the toe as
shown in Figure 5. The ultimate capacity of the
simulation pile was kept constant but the ratio
between the toe resistance and the skin
resistance was varied so that the stiffness of the
spring representing the material at the pile toe
is varied as shown in Figure 5. It is evident

ENGINEER 82
from Figure 5 that the toe reflection could be It is evident from the above demonstration that
either negative or positive depending on the the PIT records are influenced by the stiffness
stiffness of the material present at the toe of the of the soil layers present along the pile shaft. If
pile. If the stiffness of the material at the toe is the person interpreting the records is not aware
high, the toe reflection could be negative of the subsurface conditions at the site, the
whereas when the stiffness of the material interpretation could be erroneous and the good
present at the toe is low the toe reflection could piles may be identified as defective due to the
be a positive velocity pulse. reflections from the soil layers along the pile
shaft. However, it should be noted here that the
3.2 Variation of the velocity record depending reflections due to the soil layer variations along
on the variation of the stiffness of the soil the pile shaft are relatively small in magnitude
along the pile shaft. and the pulse width is wider than the
reflections due to defects of the shaft.
It is commonly observed that the velocity
records of the PIT tests show positive or 3.3 PIT records showing defective piles.
negative velocity reflections that are not
relevant to the variation of the impedance of Figure 7 shows a PIT record with a positive
the pile shaft. To demonstrate this the skin reflection indicative of a defect at about 7.5m
friction was varied along a uniform pile shaft. below the top of the pile. In subsequent Pile
Figure 6 (a) shows a simulated velocity Driving Analyzer (PDA) testing it was
reflection of a pile having a 5m thick very soft confirmed that the pile is defective and the β
layer, sandwiched between stiff layers, at about (ratio between the impedance) at the location of
5m depth from the top of the pile. Figure 6 (b) the defect is about 60%.
shows a similar velocity record of a pile having
a 5m thick relatively stiffer layer present at 0.38
cm/s 16: # 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 MA: 20.00
MD: 5.20
about 5m from the top of the pile. LE: 17.21
WS: 4106
0.18 LO: 0.88
Velocity Vs Time HI: 0.00
PV: 0
0.006 -0.03
T1: 32

0.004 Positive -0.23

T1 Toe
Velocity (m/sec)

Vel
reflection 0 4 8 12 16 m
0.002
Figure 7- PIT record of a defective pile
0 (Exponential magnification of 20 is applied to
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 the toe reflection)
-0.002
The simulation of a defect at the middle of the
-0.004 simulation pile is shown in Figure 8. It should
Time (seconds) be noted here that the in both actual and
simulated records, the positive reflection is
(a) between two negative reflections. However, the
relative magnitude of the positive reflection of
Velocity Vs Time the defect is higher than that of the negative
0.006 reflections. It should be noted here that the
actual velocity record has a exponential
Velocity (m/sec)

0.004 Negative
reflection magnification of 20 of the toe reflection.
0.002

0
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02
-0.002

-0.004
Time (Seconds)

(b)
Figure 6 - Effect of the variation of the skin
friction on the velocity record (a) presence of a
very soft layer (b) presence of a stiff layer

ENGINEER 83

Velocity Vs Time
0.006
Velocity (m/sec) 0.004
0.002
0 the PIT test done on bored and cast insitu
0 0.005 0.01
-0.002
-0.004
Time (Seconds)
Figure 8 - Simulated velocity record with
Presence of a necking
3.4 Typical reflections of PIT records in Sri
Lanka
In most of the PIT records from Sri Lanka
observed by the author indicate negative
reflections immediately after the input velocity
pulse and immediately before the toe reflection.
This observation is clearly shown in Figure 4 (a)
& (b) as well. This could be explained using the
soil stiffness variations along the pile shaft. In
most of the sites in Sri Lanka, there is a hard fill
placed above soft soil deposits at the top level
of the pile. Moreover, towards the lower end of
the pile a very strong weathered rock layer is
present. Due to the high stiffness of the fill at
the top and the strong residual formation
towards the toe of the pile, the positive
reflections are generated and such a velocity
record of a pile simulating this condition is
shown in Figure 9.
Velocity Vs Time
0.006
0.005
0.004
Velocity (m/sec)
4.0 Conclusions
Interpretation of the PIT results using the sonic
pulse echo method was investigated in this
paper. Typical problems associated with
interpretation of the Time – velocity record of
0.015 0.02 concrete piles were shown using typical
velocity records from PIT tests. Special
attention was paid to the toe reflections and
reflections due to the variations of the stiffness
of the soil present along the pile shaft.
A computer programme capable of modeling
pile response due to the hammer blow using
the wave equation method was used to
quantify the variations observed in the actual
field PIT records. It was shown that the
reflection of the toe could give rise to a positive
or negative velocity reflection depending on the
stiffness of the soil at the toe of the pile. If the
soil at the toe of the pile is soft, the resulting
velocity reflection could be positive while the
presence of stiffer material at the pile toe could
generate negative velocity reflection. However,
it should be noted here that the toe reflection of
the pile is a qualitative indication only and it
should not be used to estimate the carrying
capacity of the pile. Reflections due to the
stiffness variation of the soil along the pile shaft
were also qualitatively discussed using the
wave equation model developed. It was shown
that a relatively soft layer present along the pile
shaft could give rise to a positive velocity
reflection, which could be erroneously
identified as a defect. Positive velocity
reflection due to a defect present along the shaft
of an actual pile and that of a simulated pile
using the wave equation method was also
presented. Finally, it could be concluded that
the developed computer program using the
wave equation method could be used to

0.003
0.002 qualitatively explain the observations of the
0.001 PIT.
0
-0.001 0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02
-0.002 References
-0.003
-0.004
1. Smith, A. E. L. “Pile Driving Analysis by
-0.005
Wave Equation”, Journal of SMFD, ASCE,
Time (Seconds) 86(4), pp 35-61, 1960.

2. Thilakasiri, H. S., Abeyasinghe R. M. and

Figure 9 - Typical velocity record with stiff Tennakoon, B. L. “A study of ultimate
soil layer at the top and bottom of the pile carrying capacity estimation of driven piles
using pile driving equations and the wave
equation method”, Proc. Annual
Transactions of IESL,

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