STRUCTURAL FOUNDATION DESIGN AND CONST.
Structural Foundations are key area in the development of a building project that require the top most priority and expertise as its form the basis for which the stability of the entire structure is being anchored. Even a minute shift or settlement in the foundation structure can cause a big disaster on the building integrity as it will equally induce a structural imbalance on the overall suprstructure. The building here can be a house, bridges, road, dam, or even a suspended platform. One good point to note is that the foundation and the underlying soil must be safely interacting so that the ultimate pressure generated as a result of the service or impose loading on the foundation does not exceed the allowable bearing pressure of the soil.

A good foundation design should be called from the same structural and geotechnical source to allow for a proper instantaneous simulation of the interface. In other word, having a structural engineer with an appreciable knowledge into the goetechnical calculation is a good plus over every foundation engineering challenges. This is because, structural member restraint and reactions will be continuously check against foundation settlement to confirm a redevelopement of member reactions since member forces are redeployed over every foundation settlement interface.

This is mostly achievable by simulating through a finite element analysis by the help of a good FEA software and technical expertise couple with field observation and experience. Aslo, The structural calculations are to be carried out in accordance to the acceptable code of pratice both locally and internationally (EN 1990, EN 1991, EN 1992, EN 1993).

Our team of expert have all its take to help solve your structural foundation design and construction challenge, be it, shallow foundation (spread footing, raft and retaining wall) or deep foundation (pile, drilled shaft, and shore protection walls) from initiation to completion, including also, all geotechnical investigation, and test.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
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............................  Credit: Engr. Femi Olomola

GEOTECHNICAL INVESTIGATION AND TESTING
This critically involve obtaining the soil shear strenght parameters for subsoil profiling which is usually carried out down till the depth of influence of the intending structural load value. This can be achieve by various methods or processes, few out of which are:

1. Cone penetration test (CPT OR CPTu): This involve driving a cylindrical cone through the subsoil profile as determine by the geotechnical engineer to get the actual onsite penetration resistance as recorded by the cone sleeve and tip reactions. The field parameters obtain during the test will be a good basis to judge the shear resistance of the soil sample along with other test result which should be within the depth to which the test had been performed. The CPT test is widely used and acceptable as it is govern by various code of pratice both locally and internationally (BS EN ISO-1- 22476, BS EN ISO-12-22476, ASTM D5778 - 20).

2. Borehole and Standard penetration test (SPT): Unlike the CPT, this involve actual boring exercise, to retrieve soil sample for laboratery analysis and equally drive a split spoon through a cohesionless subsoil strata along the depth profile. The SPT test is carried out by driving a drop of hammer unto the split spoon upto 450mm depth of subsoil strata while the number of blow that will drive the last 300mm thickness of soil is being counted or measured. one of the advantage of this test over the CPT is that soil sample is being retrieved for further laboratory analysis and test. This is also widely used and acceptable as it is govern by various code of pratice both locally and internationally (EN.1997.2.2007-1, ASTM D1586 / D1586M - 18). There are several other method for a geotechnical investigation operation but these are more critical to the project as you can be sure of getting actual unambiguous strenght value.

Our team of expert have all its take to help solve all your geotechnical foundation design and construction challenge from project development, and conception till building and handover.
   


                                                      
                                  



................. Credit: Engr. Femi Olomola