Piezometer Installation

Overview

A vibrating wire piezometer is a type of instrument used in monitoring pore water pressure or water levels in various earth and rock structures. Because of their versatility, vibrating wire piezometers can be used in a variety of use cases including tailings dams, earth and rock-fill dams, levees, construction sites, monitoring wells, and more.
Canary Systems® utilized their decades of installation experience to design and fabricate a piezometer installation reel truck. The truck is fully equipped to streamline the installation process for any project with angled or grouted boreholes, as well as with singular or nested sensors.

Installation Process

For a typical installation, Canary Systems will first gather the zero reading of each piezometer. Once the truck is positioned next to the drill hole, the deepest piezometer is taped to a ½” fiberglass rod. Utilizing the fiberglass rod allows for installation of sensors in any orientation. The rod is pushed down the hole using a dual hydraulic motor tractor belt drive and additional piezometers are added at predetermined distances from the other instruments for a nested installation. Depending on the standard hole size and final installation depth, between 1 and 8 sensors may be installed at once. The maximum hole depth is 5000’ (1500m).

One of the most innovative features of the truck is the guide arm system for the fiberglass rod. The guide arm is designed to maintain full control of the fiberglass rod as it enters the hole, eliminating the need for any attachments to the drill rig and potential breakage of the rod. The piezometers are also fed along the guide arm and meet up with the rod at the top of the hole for a seamless transition entering the casing and keeping aligned through the process for accurate instrument placement.

Overall the installation reel truck permits for more consistent and efficient installations of piezometers with the mounted guide arm providing for a safer and more controlled feed of the fiberglass rod and instrument cables into the hole.

Efficient & Consistent Feed

Safer & Controlled

Single & Nested Sensors

Between 1 and 8 sensors per borehole

Angled & Grouted Boreholes

Easy access with installation reel truck

Data Integration

Once the installation process is complete, Canary Systems integrates the sensors for data collection via automated data acquisition systems (ADAS). Canary Systems has developed several of their own systems such as the MLRemote®, MLTDR, MLDAQ, and WRMT, to provide the data logging and telemetry for the installed sensors.

Clients often opt to utilize data integration software, such as Canary Systems’ MLSuite®, for automated data collection and analysis in near real-time. MLSuite provides a browser-based single point of interaction where site staff can review data via custom calculations, charts, and automated reports. Correlated data can be reviewed at a glance to watch for trends or conditions that could warrant further investigation.

Case Study – Piezometer Installation

In 2021 Canary Systems was tasked with installing vibrating wire piezometers at a mine in Arizona. The piezometers were installed within several drill holes of various depths and angles for monitoring pore pressures in specific geologic zones. They were to assist both in the permitting process for the site and to monitor through the development phase of the underground mine for verifying dewatering efforts. Utilizing the installation truck, Canary Systems was able to extend the reach of the guide arm to work around in-place drill rig platforms and efficiently feed the fiberglass rod and piezometers into the holes at the required locations.

A primary advantage of the installation truck is the ability to seamlessly dispense multiple sensors together for measurements at varying depths within the same borehole. The project included installations of 6 nested instruments in a 4200’ deep hole and 7 instruments deployed in a 3600’ deep hole. A total of 36 successful sensor installations throughout 6 grouted monitoring wells was performed. Data collections were automated using WRMT stations and the pore pressures integrated into MLSuite for continuous monitoring.