Due to the increase in service loads of foundations, a worldwide trend is being followed by geotechnical engineers and designers to measure the real behaviour of the pile-soil interaction. Historically, this was defined by the Load-Displacement Curve, obtained from a Static Load Test, and the concept of bearing capacity…if those involved in the project arrived to an agreement on its definition. Technology developed and the concept of Dynamic Load Test (DLT) arrived, bringing with it an economic and faster way of measuring the response of piles to imposed loads. But is this what the geotechnical engineer requires? A comparison between DLT and SLT is analysed throughout the eyes of a geotechnical engineer and not from the perspective of a testing house. Different types of piles were tested with both methods, seeking for correlation, side effects and installation influence in results, aiming to know the real performance vs. predictions.
In the first half of the '80s, it was introduced in Argentina the pile testing speciality based on the Stress Wave Theory; at the beginning through the Sonic Integrity Test (SIT), as a parameter for control quality of foundations and, afterwards, with the Dynamic Load Test (DLT) in order to measure the pile-soil behaviour. But up to then, how was determined the bearing capacity of a piled foundation? During those years, where Quality Assurance (QA) started to play an important role in the Argentinean construction market, as well as the increment in service loads, lead to an increase in the demand for verifying piling works. As well, a reactivation of the local economy, the availability of new technology in construction methods and tighter schedules for finishing site works, allowed the DLT to be introduced as an alternative to the cumbersome static test.
