Geotechnical Engineering / Construction Engineering
Our geotechnical engineering services include the following:
- Drilling & Subsurface Exploration
- Foundation Design Recommendations
- Pavement Design
- Pavement Management
- NDT of Roadways and Runways
- Rock Slope Engineering
- Settlement Analysis
- Retaining Wall Design
- Slope Stability
- Geophysical Exploration
- Failure Analysis
- Instrumentation and Seismic Studies
- Construction Engineering
Drilling and Subsurface Exploration
SMECON has performed over fifty of subsurface investigations and has expertise with:
- Shallow exploration to obtain bulk samples for pavement designs, borrow investigations and potential on-site select material availability
- Solid stem and hollow stem auger drilling and sampling, mud and rotary drilling, coring and air hammer drilling equipment
- Drilling and sampling with hand-auger equipment, portable mobile drills, skid rigs, all-terrain track mounted rigs and 4-wheel drive drill rigs
- Vertical, horizontal and angled drill holes
- Split-spoon samplers, California liner samplers, Shelby tube samples and NX wireline core samples
- Seismic exploration
- Test pits, test borings and core logs are presented visually using AutoCAD
Foundation Design Recommendations
- Foundations include spread, continuous or pad footings, mats or rafts, post-tensioned slabs, drilled caissons, helical piers, screw piles, compacted aggregate piers, micro piles and driven piles
- Laterally loaded pile or caisson analysis
Rock Slope Engineering
- Jointing and fracturing
- Bedding and joint orientation
- Joint alternation, strength
- Rock types, RQD, and percent recovery data
- Rock slope analysis
- Borehole cameras/sonic analysis
Settlement Analysis
- Provide settlement investigation and analysis with respect to performance on heavily loaded foundation structures, deep fills associated with commercial developments, roadway embankments and drainage structures
- Provide recommendations for foundation improvements or settlement mitigation
- Instrumentation
Retaining Wall Design
- Mechanically stabilized earth walls, soil nail walls, tieback anchor walls, soldier pile walls incorporated with different types of wall facing materials, sheet pile walls, caisson walls, wire basket walls, gravity rock walls, combination walls
Slope Stability
- Analyze potentially or existing unstable slopes, existing landslide areas using a detailed drilling program, laboratory testing program, stability analysis, and geotechnical analysis
- Analyze in-situ measurements of soil and rock behavior via instrumentation such as pressure-meters, piezometers, inclinometers, transducers, resistivity meters and deflection measuring devices
- Provide recommendations for slope stabilization or propose slope construction
- Inclinometer / Remote Detection
Geophysical Exploration
- Seismic hazard estimates via gravity and magnetic surveys and crystal-scale refraction surveys
- Embankment evaluations and ripability studies
- Assessment of subsurface voids, faults, bedrock topography and groundwater conduits and contamination, mining and construction impacts
Pavement Design / Pavement Management
- Arterials, collectors, local streets, parking areas, runways
- AASHTO, FAA, CDOT, MGPEC, FHWA, individual municipality design procedures
- New pavement or rehabilitation for flexible or rigid pavement sections
- Pavement management program
- Asphalt and concrete mix designs
- Pavement subgrade improvements/stabilization
- Pavement evaluation utilizing falling weight deflection(FWD) and/or ground penetrating radar (GPR)
Construction Engineering
- Review of design plans for conformance to recommendations
- Monitoring of subsurface soils and foundation during construction
Failure Analysis
SMECON provides investigation and consultation services, plus expertise in failure analysis and expert witness consultation. SMECON can provide:
- Distress evaluation for buildings, foundations, floor slabs, retaining walls, and dams
- Pavement distress evaluation and repair recommendations
- Shoring design, slope failure analysis, monitoring and remediation.
- Rock fall analysis and mitigation