Concrete Lego Puzzle - Static Load Test

Concrete Puzzle!!! Modern Pyramid!!
For those who are not in the construction industry may wonder what is this concrete hill. Most of the time, this hill is keep shifting from one point to another. The picture shows about 4 blocks height of concrete pyramid.

This is so-called static load test. In a nutshell, this is a test to check the design loading capacity. This is normally being done at those heavy structure buildings or those ground condition which the loading capacity was in doubt .



The hidden secret underneath the "concrete pyramid" is this powerful hydraulic jack(s). The selected hydraulic is jacking up to create a force pushing down the test pile/ ground. Then, the settlement of pile is collected for further analysis to correlate with the design criteria. Usually this test takes a few days as it need time for it to settle.


In real site, this static load test is very messy and it need few hundred number of block and how troublesome to get the logistic done on mobilization of concrete block as it may involve 30-80 or above, trips of trailer.

Pyramid has been transform in construction for a load test purpose. Is this notion come from pyramid?