Comprehensive Bridge Engineering

Geotechnical Investigation
- Methods and Evaluation with Notes on Maintenance -

September 25, 2013

H. Todo
(todo.hiroaki@kiso.co.jp)
Kiso-Jiban Consultants Co., ltd.

 Self introduction
Target (audience): government officers
engaged in planning, design, construction,
and maintenance of (road) bridges, with
some or little knowledge of geotechnical
engineering and investigations

Your senior officers

YOU
Your subordinates

A/E
Consultant
Geotechnical
Consultant
Soil investigation
companies

Field work
Less
Raw
information

Office work

engineering
education

More
Interpretation
application

implicit knowledge fading away

Construction
companies

terminology
Subsurface
investigations

Ground surface and

subsurface investigations

Soil investigation
Geotechnical
investigation
Soil survey

Site investigation
Site survey

schedule
Morning 10:00 12:30
10:10-11:10 strategic consideration of geotechnical
investigation planning
11:20-12:30 items of investigation

Afternoon 14:00 16:30

14:00-14:50 method of geotechnical investigation
15:00-15:50 evaluation of geotechnical data
16:00-16:30 maintenance related subjects

Foundation design: purpose of

geotechnical investigations
Function of foundations

Foundation design

Carrying superstructure loads

Transferring the
loads to the ground
Distributing the
loads in controlled
manner

How to transfer the

loads to the ground?
How to distribute
stresses?
How to control
stresses?

We must understand:
Load from superstructure
Ground conditions
Geometry (geology, layers)
Property (strength, compressibility, permeability)

Investigation of the ground

Questions before, during, and after soil investigation

Is the investigation enough?

No definite answer, but we practice:

Step by step approach

Modeling the ground with knowledge of
engineering geology
Engineering judgment

Step by step approach

Soil investigation is multi-stage process of:

Obtaining information on the subsoil
conditions
Exploring, identifying, and quantifying
potential geotechnical risks
The process continues during construction
and maintenance periods.

Modeling the ground with knowledge of

engineering geology

Information for engineering

geological judgment

Geological maps
Topographical maps
Vegetation maps
Satellite photos
Borehole information systems

Engineering judgment
We have to conclude the investigation at a certain
point. However, we are not sure if the information
collected is correct and sufficient. The quantity of
data obtained from the soil investigation is usually
not as sufficient as to allow us to statistically
determine the properties of every part of the ground.
Do you worry if the soil property may be different at
10m away from a borehole?
Answer: we use engineering judgment (a good guess
or professional guess) with imagination of the ground
condition based on scarce data.

 Our judgment on enough or not is always

tentative.
Use all information available
Get advices from various sources, not from
a single source
Think yourselves.