I am going to be providing geotechnical engineering services on the side and am looking into professional liability, or errors and omissions, insurance. Basically, I will only be performing subsurface investigations for residential structures in south Alabama and the Florida panhandle. I have...
I just recently read "Geotechnical Engineering in Residual Soils" and based on the statements made in the text, settlement analyses on residual soils are best performed using the coefficient of compressibility (mv). The author is not a fan of working with consolidation test data when plotted on...
Where can I find a good handbook/design guide for soil-cement design? I thought I used to have one from the portland cement association, but I can only find my soil-cement inspectors manual and soil-cement construction handbook.
We are working on a project where the contractor has requested to...
Is lateral squeeze the same thing as a mud wave?
I can't find any references that relate the two terms. But based on my experience, I think they are.
I personally have not been involved on a project where mud waves were induced due to fill placement. If a mud wave did develop, what is...
What is the best in-situ testing method to determine the friction angle in very loose (Weight of Hammer) sands/silty sands? We obviously already have SPT borings in the project area, but I'm trying to decide if we should perform some CPT soundings, or maybe another testing method that I do not...
For the rankine active earth pressure case, the wall moves a sufficient distance away from the soil mass causing the soil to fail on a plane of 45 + phi/2 with the horizontal. This is true for a granular soil with no cohesion. If you completely removed the wall away from the soil, the soil...
We are having to add a new chiller/mechanical pad on top of an existing slope at a dam project. I have attached a rough sketch for reference. The pad size and loading conditions are not known at this point; and I know this will influence the foundation type. The existing slope consists of...
I have a question regarding dredging a shipping channel. The existing channel will be deepened and widened by box cut dredging. Based on past dredging events in this channel, after the box cut operations are completed, the slope fails and stabilizes anywhere between 11 degrees to 14 degrees...
How are the presumptive allowable lateral pressures calculated in the IBC?
Sand, for instance, is 150 psf/ft. Is this calculated from the passive pressure divided by a safety factor?
Where can I get this book from:
Settlement Analyses of Cohesive Soils, Charles Ladd, 1971
Also, are there any other references you would recommend for preloading and surcharging soft clay soils?
We are designing a pavement section for a new parking lot. After the pavement section is constructed, it will be subjected to crane loading with an applied pressure at the outrigger of 71 ksf. The outrigger has a bearing area of 1.5ft x 1.5ft. The client wants flexible pavement.
I don't see...
I am working on a preliminary geotechnical exploration in northwest Florida for possible locations for a solar pv site. Soil conditions consist of dense clayey fine sands (SC) with fines contents of 47% from the ground surface to a depth of 15 ft.
Would you run UU tests or CU (with pore...
Have any of you used the soggy bottom sampler system by AMS?
Here is the link:
https://www.ams-samplers.com/hand-tooling/sludge-and-sediment-samplers/sludge-and-sediment-sampling-kits/soggy-bottom-sampler-system.html
I need to perform some shallow auger borings (5 to 10ft deep) along a...
Do any of you have the textbook, Soil Improvement by Preloading (Wiley Series in Geotechnical Engineering) by Stamatopoulos? Is is worth the read/purchasing?
I am looking for references on preloading and staged construction that include information on lab testing programs/procedures to...
Looking for recommendations/details of how to seal a pipe penetration through a 20 mil seepage barrier for a detention pond. The berm is about 5ft in height. The contractor is planning to key the 20 mil seepage barrier into the underlying clay soils. There are 2 pipe penetrations along the berm...
I am pursuing the SI through the route of a Florida PE whose principle practice is performing strucural field inspections. There are 5 certifications I must have in addition to 5 years of experience performing structural field inspections. The certifications are as follows:
1. ACI Concrete (I...
My mom called me over to her house because she said she had a "sinkhole" forming at the corner of her driveway that abuts the garage. I am going to attach a series of pictures showing the erosion. I am thinking the water causing the issue is coming from the roof valley (picture below). I can't...
My firm has been requested to perform an EAR for an FDOT project.
Project Info: the contractor has installed 27 drainage structures and has no compaction data. Here in Florida, drainage structures are required to be backfilled in 6 inch lifts and compacted to 100% pf the standard proctor. Pipe...
