84 | ISSUE 3 2021 www.piledrivers.org
“We drove 26 piles in one single day, all instrumented, lined up
and each pile tested for every blow. If we had used external sensors,
this would have taken about 13 hours extra time to detach and
attach, but by using the SmartPile® system, all that time was saved.”
In the foundation future
“We are always working on products,” said Allady. “One for the driven
pile industry is the SmartPile™ Inspector – basically a SmartPile™
acoustic sensor device. When the pile is being driven, the device
captures the blows, compares with all the pile driving criteria
and generates information on when to stop driving the pile. This
is being used for all non-instrumented piles (concrete and steel).”
This innovative company is developing several other products,
predictive technologies for the driven pile industry: corrosion sensors,
load sensors and vibration sensors.
“For example, if there is brackish water, we would install corrosion
sensors for early detection of pile damage,” said Allady. “In the
present day, everything in the driven pile industry is descriptive. If
a fissure or small crack occurs in a driven concrete pile, water will
eventually creep in and the pile must be repaired. But, with the
right sensors embedded, we can detect the initiation of the crack
and take mitigating measures to protect that particular pile before
things get worse.”
Through its affiliate engineering membership in PDCA, Smart
Structures is looking to find more ways to bring the benefits of its
SmartPile® technology and software to the driven pile industry so
that every driven pile will be a tested pile for not only today but for
tomorrow as well. t
OR
Monitoring during construction
Photo courtesy of Smart Structures
PDCA ENGINEERING AFFILIATE MEMBER
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