Geotechnical Drilling Cheval

Cheval developers consider geotechnical drilling to be a very useful technique for gaining critical information and insight about the suitability and integrity of a building site.

What’s Involved in Geotechnical Drilling?

Cheval geotechnical drilling crews will bring a portable drilling rig to the site, where they will extract multiple core samples from various locations throughout the site. These core samples are comprised of a vertical column of soil and stone. The cores are sent to a laboratory for testing and evaluation.

Analysts will look at lots of different properties as they examine the core samples, including:

• Layer composition;
• Layer depth;
• Stone strength;
• Layer density; and
• Water content/soil saturation.

Based upon the results of the geotechnical drilling, Cheval developers can determine whether a site can safely support a particular type/size of building. If a building was constructed in an inappropriate location, structural damage may result over time. A common problem involves sinking, whereby some or all of the structure begins to sink down into the earth, resulting in potentially structural damage.

Geotechnical drilling can also help identify the presence of underground voids or cavities which can form when acid-rich ground water seeps into and dissolves pockets in the limestone bedrock. These underground cavities are problematic because they can collapse, forming what’s known as a sinkhole. A sinkhole forms when an underground cavity collapses under the weight of the overlaying structures, soil and stone.

Florida is especially prone to sinkholes because of the large amounts of rain that often falls in a very short time, combined with the sandy soil with a low clay content, and the limestone bedrock. Limestone is very porous and it’s easily dissolved by acidic water.

If further testing is required, the developers may opt to pursue further testing, like ground penetrating radar. Ground penetrating radar creates a digital underground map, depicting the density and thickness of the various underground layers. Whereas geotechnical entails “spot tests”, ground penetrating radar is used to scan large areas of land.

*Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of Amdrill Inc*