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Recent content by howardoark

  1. howardoark

    Detection of buried foundations

    Ground penetrating radar will probably work assuming it's a slab on grade.
  2. howardoark

    Key Bridge

    Elon Musk has opined that the remains of the Key Bridge could be salvaged and used to construct a new bridge in 3 to 6 months. If Leprechauns (I'm not saying this is a realistic scenario) could unbolt all of the steel in the old bridge and gently bring the structural shapes to shore and...
  3. howardoark

    Vane Shear Testing

    Thanks for getting back to me. All of the tests were within spec for the vane rotation. The fastest one actually failed the worst. The ones that passed were all pretty much dead on 6 degrees a minute. The ones that failed were down around 3 degrees a minute. I'll know what to look for next year.
  4. howardoark

    How to determine if soil is expansive?

    If you're required to do expansion tests you should probably do them. We wouldn't consider a PI of 9.6 to be expansive, but your geotechnical engineer didn't do Atterberg limits on the material your foundation will be resting on, so you really don't know. We have expansive shales in my area. Do...
  5. howardoark

    Vane Shear Testing

    My client is building a levee over a fairly thin (6 to 10 feet) strata of normally-consolidated very soft clay. The work is being done in stages. Settlements and excess pore pressures are being monitored in the soft clay. To move to the second stage of levee construction the contractor was...
  6. howardoark

    Subgrade liquefying during compaction of first lift

    Are you in earthquake country?
  7. howardoark

    Friction angle of crushed rock

    There's a thread I couldn't respond to on this subject - https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=196797 where the general opinion was 40 degrees was as high as you should go. FHWA did some large scale direct shear testing and got more than 50 degrees - FHWA Publication No.: FHWA-HRT-13-068...
  8. howardoark

    cement treated permeable base as a wearing course?

    I have a project where they want to construct a fire access road around the complex using pavers over permeable base. During construction they want to use the road for construction vehicles (without the pavers). I suggested using cement treated permeable base (it's 3 sack with all coarse...
  9. howardoark

    Geotechnical Engineer Exam

    I also passed the GE exam. Like all of those tests, it's really a test of how organized your references are and how well you budget your time. My suggestion would be go through one of the GE practice tests/books and carefully index your references wrt to problem types so you don't spend any time...
  10. howardoark

    Preloading and Surcharge

    You also need to have some understanding of the horizontal hydraulic conductivity. I convinced a client they needed wick drains and got 8 inches of settlement in about a week. I think they still needed the wick drains, but we could have spaced them further apart.
  11. howardoark

    silts vs. clays

    I was going over in my head how to explain something to non-geotechnical engineers when I realized I didn't understand it myself (embarrassing). Non-plastic silts are, imho, the worst construction material, weak, erodible, subject to collapse - assuming you won't use peat as a construction...
  12. howardoark

    Performance Bond

    We did some construction work (lost money). The public agency required a performance bond on our original bid which we obtained. We eventually had a change order for about 2/3s of the original cost that they didn't require a bond on (though our contract with the bonding agency mentions that we...
  13. howardoark

    Mexico City Hotel Lobby

    The city has very thick deposits of very uniform normally-consolidated lake clay under it, so settlements are pretty easy to predict. On top of that, they're also withdrawing groundwater at an alarming rate which is causing massive subsidence.
  14. howardoark

    Mexico City Hotel Lobby

    Back in 1977 my undergraduate soils professor mentioned that there was a hotel constructed on a mat foundation in Mexico City that had two lobbies. Once the building had settled 10 feet, they started using the upper lobby. Was he pulling our legs? Does anyone know what hotel that might have...
  15. howardoark

    continuing education

    Does anyone have any suggestions for on-line continuing education classes? I tried the Australian company (hit and miss) and CPE solutions (complete miss). Thanks
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