Pile monitoring

One area in which distributed fibre optic sensing (DFOS) is gradually becoming the incumbent technology in the UK is static preliminary pile load tests. At the time of writing this guide, CSIC had deployed DFOS in 11 test piles in the past year alone. Six case studies are presented in this chapter, of which four are examples of static pile load tests. With the first one, the load is applied conventionally with a load frame, whereas in the second and third cases it is applied to bored piles with an Osterberg cell. The fourth case study demonstrates that the technique is equally viable with continuous flight auger (CFA) piles. The fifth case study deals with the impact of heating and cooling on the geotechnical performance of energy piles. The last case study describes the implementation of DFOS in an existing pile prior to demolition of a building to help assess the potential for pile re-use.