Geotechnical Engineering Projects

Types of Projects

• Commercial building geotechnical investigations
• Multifamily development geotechnical reports
• Parking lot and pavement geotechnical analysis
• Retaining wall geotechnical parameters
• Expansive soil evaluation and mitigation
• Settlement analysis for existing structures
• Foundation recommendations for new construction
• Earthwork and compaction specifications
• Government and federal facility geotechnical
• Site characterization for adaptive reuse

Scope of Work

Geotechnical scope is the ground truth under a project: borings or test pits logged by engineers, laboratory testing of the recovered samples, and an analysis that turns soil data into design parameters. The work is scaled to the structure — a light commercial pad and a multi-story building on problem soils get different investigation densities, but both get recommendations a structural engineer can design to.

Typical Deliverables

The core deliverable is a sealed geotechnical report: boring logs, laboratory results, bearing capacity and settlement estimates, foundation recommendations — shallow, deep, or ground-improved — lateral earth pressures for retaining design, pavement section recommendations, and earthwork specifications covering fill placement, compaction, and moisture control. Where construction follows, we provide observation during grading and foundation work.

Codes and Standards

Geotechnical practice is anchored by the building code's soils chapter — IBC Chapter 18 requires a geotechnical investigation for most commercial structures and sets the report contents — applied through ASTM standards for the field and laboratory work itself, including D1586 (standard penetration test), D420 (site characterization), and D698 and D1557 (compaction). Local amendments and known hazard mapping — expansive soil, liquefaction, flood — shape the scope further.

Coordination and Permitting

The geotechnical report is an input to nearly every other discipline: structural designs the foundations to it, civil grades and paves over it, and the contractor prices earthwork from it. We coordinate boring locations with the civil design so utilities and detention do not land where data is needed, and we stay engaged through construction — because the excavation always reveals something the borings could not.

Design Risks We Manage

The expensive geotechnical surprises are expansive clays that heave slabs, undocumented fill that settles unevenly, and groundwater higher than dry-season borings suggested. We manage them by testing for swell potential where the geology calls for it, probing suspect fill, and setting drainage and foundation details that assume seasonal water — not the water table on the day of the boring.