STATIC PILE LOAD TEST: INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE REVIEW AND DISCUSSION ABOUT THE EUROPEAN AND JAPANESE STANDARDS

This publication aims to describe the European and Japanese standards in order to discuss about the ongoing project of revision of the Japanese standard for static pile load tests, keeping in mind that the future version of this standard will have to take into accounts Japanese past experience, as well as the future needs to adapt to overseas practices, if necessary, for economical purposes. To do so, the different derived parameters that can be obtained by carrying out a static pile load test on a vertically loaded pile (instrumented or not) are described. Then, the current practice for static pile load tests in Japan is described, and the main current overseas practices (with an extra focus on the European practices) are inventoried, and their differences (if any) with the Japanese practice are highlighted. Finally, these differences are discussed, and their importance assessed for a possible integration in the future Japanese standard, that could this way be seen for an oversea point of view as viable and legitimate alternative to the other and until now more common practices.