House & Industrial Site Investigations

Drilling

Queensland Geotechnical currently has two drill rigs available allowing us to better respond to our clients needs. All drilling is performed by our experienced and highly trained staff to depths of 20m. Bore holes are typically extensively logged as to material changes in strength, plasticity, colour and the depth that these material changes occur. Notes are also made as to the moisture and if some layers may be old fill previously placed on site. These samples may then be taken back to the laboratory and tested as required.

Classifications

Queensland Geotechnical Services use only licensed persons when getting site classifications for our clients.  It is important to get the correct classification so that any structures to be built on the site are soundly designed to cope with bearing strength deficiencies.  Reactive sites typically are more expensive to build on due to the amount of potential ground movement than Non-reactive or low reactive sites.

DCPs & SPTs

Field penetration tests are often required by various bodies (typically civil engineers), our lab can quickly provide Dynamic Cone Penetrometer tests (DCPs) to suit your needs. These are typically used on soils, gravels are generally not tested using this method.  Our larger drill rig carries calibrated equipment designed for testing Standard Penetration Tests (SPTs) which are sometimes required for larger commercial structures.  Australian Standards: AS1289 6.3.1, 6.3.2

Footing Design

We only use qualified engineers to design footings based on our NATA certified test results. Footing design is a serious business. We only use experienced professional and qualified engineers to design for your footing structures.   It is common for engineers to require testing of footings for a kPa rating. Two methods of this are the Pocket Penetrometer and the DCP (See above).