FOUNDATIONS OF BUILDINGS.

FOUNDATIONS OF BUILDINGS.
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what do we do when soil investigations are done at the site?
What are we looking for?
And who demands these values?
It is the engineer to make sure your building is safe.
What is needed is
- the shear strength parameters of the soil
and
- the unit weight or density of the soil
These will be needed should an engineer want to determine
the safe bearing capacity of the soils underneath the
foundation to be of the building.

Then again, should the engineer want to know how
far deep you will have to excavate, the following
site investigations would be needed:
- depth of the excavation
- shear strength parameters
- the water table position.
With these, the engineer will tell you how deepest
down you can indeed excavate.
Chucks of soil normally fail but not necessarily the
whole shoil mass failing, so stand warned, such result
from cracks within the soils which are so so hard to determine
But know for sure, when there is a road or a building nearby,
expect unknown such failures and the engineer will not
ever have the slightest idea of where they will begin from
but can estimate, say 70% of the possibility.
Soil is the most unpredictable element around because
of repeated forces impacted upon it by man's activities,

Nathan, dec2009