The tranquil sea coast in the heading is deceptive.<\/p>\n
Many forensic engineering problems are caused by water or water is a factor in their cause.\u00a0 J. Knoll photographed Prospect Bay, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada on a nice\u00a0day.<\/p>\n
Other days are not so nice along the 1,000s of kilometres of Atlantic sea coast – almost as long as Canada is wide.\u00a0 Nor are the 1,000s of rivers\u00a0and streams that flood \u2013 and they certainly have flooded this past June with the near record rainfall \u2013 213 ml (8.4 in) at the Halifax airport compared to a normal 98.3 ml (3.9 in).<\/p>\n
The rivers and lakes are still flooding as the land sheds the rainfall in runoff to our watercourses.\u00a0 And the lakes are overtopping their banks \u2013 there are more than 4,000 lakes in Nova Scotia.\u00a0 That\u2019s just the water you can see on the ground surface.<\/p>\n
There is also the groundwater, the water table, that you can\u2019t see.\u00a0 Water that is just below the ground surface or down deep, and fluctuating up and down all the time \u2013 certain to be well up and high after our rains in June.<\/p>\n
Ground water flows through the ground much like a river flows on the land; welling up behind obstacles buried in the ground \u2013 e.g., foundations and basement walls, like river water wells up behind a boulder in a stream.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been said that if you could take the water out of the ground, out of the soils and rocks beneath our feet, you would reduce foundation and ground engineering problems to a fraction.<\/p>\n
The camera\u00a0operator in the heading is filming the re-enactment of a fatal MVA from a sea king helicopter during a forensic engineering investigation.\u00a0 I set up a full scale test site at\u00a0Shearwater airbase\u00a0complete with: 1. A\u00a0traffic lane, 2. An obstacle in\u00a0the lane, 3. A\u00a0vehicle, 4. Monitoring devices to track vehicle behaviour on striking\u00a0the obstacle, and, 5. Film crews to record the tests.<\/p>\n
The sea and snow – frozen water, were factors in the fatal accident.<\/p>\n
The surveyor in\u00a0the heading is checking the\u00a0adequacy of the underpinning\u00a0of a structure during\u00a0a forensic investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The tranquil sea coast in the heading is deceptive. Many forensic engineering problems are caused by water or water is a factor in their cause.\u00a0 J. Knoll photographed Prospect Bay, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada on a nice\u00a0day. Other days are … Continue reading