Soil Instruments Vibrating Wire Piezometer is designed for accurate and long term measurement of pore water pressures in fully or partially saturated soil and rock. This is particularly useful in estimating slope stability, safe placement rate of fill or excavation, design and build for lateral or uplift pressures or buoyancy, monitoring the performance of earth-fill dams and embankments, seepage and verify models of flow, monitor surface water run-off, water levels at contaminated sites etc.

With over 30 years experience in Vibrating Wire technology, the piezometer is robust, has excellent long term stability and can be used with long cable lengths without any signal degradation.

The piezometer comprises a porous filter tip element (high or low air entry) integral with a diaphragm type vibrating wire pressure transducer. A cable connects the transducer to a read-out, terminal unit or data-logger. The data is then recorded and converted to engineering units using a read-out unit or a logger.

Piezometers are installed in different ways depending on the application and soil condition. Typically, they are installed in boreholes surrounded by a sand filter at the desired depth followed by formation of a bentonite plug above the sand filter. Then the remainder of the borehole is filled with a bentonite-cement grout.