skip to Main Content

Static Pore Pressure Meters

previous slide
next slide

Our static pore pressure meters

At Gouda Geo-Equipment, you can order our convenient static pore pressure meters. Use these to measure pore pressure in groundwater in the subsoil. The subsoil is an accumulation of multiple layers of different types of soil. Every soil type has its own unique properties resulting in stable and instable soils and individual permeability characteristics. This causes the ground water pore pressure to vary per area and depth. With our tools, you will be able to gather all the data you need concerning pore pressure at a high-precision level.

Our electrical pore pressure meter is an absolute-pressure transducer designed to measure fluid pressure and therefore it is an excellent tool to observe the in-situ ground water pore pressure in soil and rock masses during a certain period of time. These meters are mainly used to monitor engineering works in dikes, sand-bodies for road-construction, embankments, landfills, natural slopes, hydraulic structures, foundations, retaining walls, dams, excavations, tunnels, waste repository sites, and alike. They are put in place for longer periods. This is why we supply both single-use pore pressure meters as well as retrievable pore pressure meters for relatively short projects.

How to install our pore pressure meters

Because of their design, the pore pressure meters are easy to install using either a hand auger drill, drill rig or penetrometer pusher. The watertight, rigid housing made either of PVC or stainless steel protects the sensor components from the effects of water, mechanical shocks and external loads. A filter prevents solid material from entering while it ensures hydraulic continuity between groundwater and the sensor. Furthermore, the meters do not require any maintenance; this makes them very suitable for long time projects and even permanent installations.

The pore pressure meters of our Dutch CPT company feature high accuracy and are compensated for temperature variations making the thermal-zero shift correction negligible. The latter is the result of the fact that the full-scale calibration data are subdivided in 100 steps and stored in the internal memory module of the meter. These calibration values are used during the test to compensate the output values automatically. The pore pressure meters are immune mechanical stress, and the high insulating resistance makes them very suitable for even the harshest environment. The voltage type output signals are easy to process.

  • Measurement of the influence of dynamic loads on the subsoil by trains or traffic
  • Determination of macro-stability mechanisms of soils
  • Determination of the degree of de-watering of soils
  • Assessment of the stability of an embankment and ascertain if it is possible to add the next charge of fill material
  • Determination of the position of the phreatic water table and the changes in the course of time (influenced either by tide, river discharge or drainage)
  • Determination of the degree of consolidation of the ground
  • Monitoring the variations in pore pressures in and near potential failing surfaces effected by plastic deformations
  • The detection of the beginning of (more superficial) slides
  • Determination of the influence of static loads on the pore pressure
  • Determination of the effectiveness of the installed infiltration system
  • Observation of the homogeneity of occurring groundwater flow as a result of infiltration
  • Determination of the boundary conditions for groundwater flow analysis

The reading of the data of this geotechnical instrument can either be done by a person going into the field with a handheld read-out unit, or it can be done automatically using a remote data recorder with built-in GPRS-modem. Using a remote data recorder enables you to monitor online the pore pressure meters in real time. Pore pressure data are recorded at preset intervals and stored until downloaded. In this way a practically continuous image of the variations in pore pressure is obtained.

The remote data recorders come in 2 versions:

  • Version 1 (art.nr. 02 03 100) that assures for continuous registration, processing, recording and transmitting (GPRS) of data
  • Version 2 (art.nr. 02 03 200) that only records and transmits data at preset intervals

Depending on the specific application of the pore pressure meters, it could be necessary to compensate for the barometric pressure. Gouda Geo-Equipment supplies purposely designed electronic barometers that can be connected to the dataloggers as well.

Search
Close mobile menu