ENGEO are providing geotechnical engineering services for the repair and rebuilding of multiple commercial and residential sites affected by the Canterbury Earthquake Sequence. This includes performing subsurface investigation to provide analysis of seismic hazards and bearing capacity along with foundation recommendations. We have been engaged by individual homeowners, commercial property owners and a number of large insurance companies to undertake geotechnical investigations for over 4,000 residential and commercial properties.
The sites are located across the city and include areas that have been subjected to significant liquefaction, lateral spreading, rockfall and slope instability. The investigations vary from shallow testing to full scale CPT and machine borehole testing. The more liquefaction prone sites require detailed liquefaction potential analysis and many hill sites require an assessment of rockfall hazard and slope stability.
ENGEO is also providing technical direction and review of field investigation and reports that address the potential for and consequences of seismic hazards including rock fall and liquefaction and interpretation of liquefaction and settlement analysis and lateral spreading under Ultimate Limit State (ULS) and Serviceability Limit State (SLS) ground motions. We are evaluating the bearing capacity of subsurface soils in order to provide appropriate foundation recommendations for the repair or rebuild of these structures. All analysis work and foundation recommendations are performed in accordance with the 2012 MBIE Guidelines and current revisions, as appropriate.
Project complexities include the interaction with multiple stakeholders (i.e. insurance companies, contractors, homeowners) and the execution of geotechnical investigations to meet tight time frames as well as the development of foundation systems that provided a balance between cost effectiveness and performance
We have developed computer software to enable the efficient collection of field data and to automate formerly manual processes. This has led to major improvements in productivity while preserving the quality of our reporting and foundation recommendations. Forging a strong working relationship with our US colleagues has aided in keeping the quality of our work at the highest level and provided additional manpower and technical capacity.
We are conscious of the need to generate foundation recommendations in a timely manner in order to help speed up the Christchurch rebuild. Ultimately we play a part in helping people have their homes repaired or rebuilt and knowing this drives us to continually seek better, more efficient ways of doing things.
