Geotechnical Archives

SEAoT interview with Pieresearch discussing Why Specifications Matter

SPECIFICATIONS MATTER: WHY STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS MUST IDENTIFY PRODUCTS FOR EVERY PROJECT. If you’re a structural, civil, or geotechnical engineer in Texas, you probably know of Pieresearch^®. Pieresearch^® serves the deep foundation and earth retention industries, offering structural engineers rebar reinforcing alignment and centralizer products...

Tom Witherspoon | The Geotechnical Engineer

Hi, I'm Tom Witherspoon. I am structural and geotechnical engineer. I'm actually a diplomate as a geotechnical engineer, recognized by the Geo-Institute. And by the Structural Engineering Certification Board, I am a structural engineer. I also owned a foundation drilling company and ran that for over 22 years, S&W Foundation, and did a lot of limited access drilling and things that were considered to be impossible...

HOW’S THE WATER?

Stan Agee
“You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” This 12th Century English homily presents a classic conundrum: Why won’t the horse drink the water? Not drinking is clearly self-destructive. Refusing water seems absurd. But let’s look at the situation from the horse’s point of view. If the horse has been led to the water …

REINFORCEMENT IN DRILLED SHAFT DEEP FOUNDATIONS

John B. Turner, P.E.
The foundation of a building or other structure is designed and constructed to transmit forces from the structure to the soil. Under typical conditions, these forces are the result of gravity – the weight of the building, occupants, and materials…

WHY SPECIFICATIONS MATTER

Walter Scarborough FCSI, SCIP
To almost everyone involved with the construction of buildings, specifications seem to be a strange and mysterious world: massive amounts of technical information, references to obscure standards, and no graphics, just thousands of incomprehensible words...

THE WHAT & WHY OF BUILDING CODES

Hamid Naderi, P.E., CBO
Margi M. Leddin
Building codes are sets of rules defining how buildings can be designed and constructed to a minimum level of safety. They are not a phenomenon of the modern world; rather, they have been around for centuries, one of the...

SAFETY AWARENESS AND PRACTICES FOR CONSTRUCTORS AND ENGINEERS

S. Scot Litke, Honorary D.GE
One would hope that by now virtually every company that works in the field of geo-design and geo-construction would have a full understanding of the importance of making company-wide commitments to developing and...

WOMEN IN CIVIL ENGINEERING & CIVIL CONSTRUCTION: TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR OWN CAREER

S. Scot Litke, Honorary D.GE
I realize that I could be criticized as being guilty of “looking from the outside in” without a personal understanding of what women working in civil engineering (CE), and civil construction (CC), are up against...