What’s the most important part of any structure? If you said the foundation, ding ding ding! That’s right. The whole building rests upon the foundation. No matter how strong the rest of the building is, if the foundation is unstable, the building will have some problems. They might be as small as some settling, which can result in uneven floors, cracked walls, and issues with plumbing. Serious issues with the foundation can be so severe as to require the entire structure to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.
Geotechnical drilling is a critical element to the investigation required to ensure that the ground is solid for the placement of the foundation. This is especially important when the construction is onshore or close to the shore. Geotech drilling is used to analyze the site. It involves collecting rock and soil samples at representative levels below the desired foundation depths, at a collection of different locations in the building site. Drilling and core samples are used to create a soil profile for the site. This profile helps to find unsafe rock, explore soil conditions, and determine the integrity of the site. When the soil profile is performed effectively, it prevents structural collapse due to earthquakes, floods, tornados, or other natural disasters.
Another benefit of geotechnical drilling is that it allows you to look for gas, oil, and mineral deposits. These are lucrative deposits and the discovery of them on a piece of land can help to make the best decisions as to how the land can be developed profitably. This can also be used by scientific researchers to investigate the constitution of ice sheets or geological structures. Material analysis of these structures is helpful, then, both for commercial and scientific exploration. Licensed and experienced drilling contractors will have the skills and background necessary to address all of your drilling needs.
Geotechnical drilling is necessary to evaluate a site before the building permit can be issues. It requires specialised equipment such as drilling rigs and other drilling devices. In addition to the hardware, a certified geotechnical engineer is required to oversee the project, and all of the drillers have to have special drilling certifications to ensure that they have the skills and experience necessary to do the job safely and produce valid results. Since geotechnical investigations are so critical to the final outcome of the project, all work must be held to the highest standards possible. It’s essential to ensure that the process is safely monitored by a qualified drilling company and that no issues pose a risk to the construction development.
Geotechnical drilling is most important for extremely heavy structures like oil rigs or buildings that have a heavy load index for the soil. Depending on the intended load of the final structure, drilling equipment might be manual, mobile, or the larger drilling rigs required for offshore oil rigs. The proper, skilled use of drilling rigs and other drilling equipment ensures that the site development is safely and skilfully monitored, and that no additional complications arise during construction. This allows the site to be prepared for caissons, pilings, foundations, and other structures.
If you’d like to know more about the needs of your site or if you have any questions about geotechnical analysis, feel free to contact us. At BG Drilling, we are dedicated to offering you the highest level of service for all of your drilling needs.